Sort each design decision by whether it threatens the reliability or the validity of a measure.
Groups: Threatens reliability · Threatens validity
- The coding scheme is applied inconsistently across the fieldwork period
- Different interviewers record the same answer in different categories
- Examination results are used to measure the quality of a school
- Church attendance is used as the sole indicator of religious belief
Hints
- One column contains problems of consistency and the other problems of meaning.
- Ask in each case whether repeating the procedure would give the same answer, and whether that answer would be about the right thing.
Show the answer
Threatens reliability: Different interviewers record the same answer in different categories, The coding scheme is applied inconsistently across the fieldwork period
Threatens validity: Church attendance is used as the sole indicator of religious belief, Examination results are used to measure the quality of a school
The last item is the one worth arguing over. Examination results are highly reliable and measure the intake of a school at least as much as its teaching, which is why value-added measures were invented, an attempt to rescue validity from an instrument whose reliability was never in doubt.
Practise Analysing Social Processes
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