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Reliability and Validity Paper
Jessica Cruz
BSHS/382
Angela Colistra
April 16, 2010

Reliability and Validity Paper Reliability and validity are the two criteria are needed when conducting research in the human services field in which the researcher’s results would be ineffective and useless without reliability and validity. In this paper the types of reliability and validity will be defined and examples of each will be given. Examples will be given of a data collection method and what data collection instrument is used in human services and in managerial research.

Reliability
Reliability implies to consistency or stability but it may also imply dependability. There are many types of reliability that are used in research, beginning with Alternate-form reliability: The degree of relatedness of different forms of the same test and an example of this is when a psychosocial assessment’s questions are changed. Internal-consistency reliability: The overall degree of relatedness of all items in a test or all raters in a judgment study and an example of this is when a participant agrees that “I love hot days: and “I’ve enjoyed hot days in the past”, and disagreed with the statement “I hate hot days”. Item-to-item reliability: The reliability of any single item on average and an example would be two identical items such as coins. Test-retest reliability: The degree of temporal stability (relatedness) of a measuring instrument or test, or the character it is designed to evaluate, from one administration to another. (Rosnow & Rosenthal,
Chapter 6, Reliability and Validity in Measurement and Research, 2008). Validity
According to Rosnow and Rosenthal (2008) “Construct validity: The degree to which the conceptualization of what is being measured or experimentally

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