PSYC 3430 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Takers, Psychological Testing, Psych

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3430
• Professor: Peter K Papadogiannis

Document Summary

Reliability is synonymous with consistency (of the instrument or the method of collecting the data over multiple occasions of collecting data). It is the degree to which test scores for a an individual test taker or group of test takers are consistent over repeated applications. If your instrument or method of collecting the data is not reliable, it is useless. Every instrument and method of collection is flawed. No psychological test is completely consistent, however, a measurement that is unreliable is worthless. A student receives a score of 100 on one intelligence tests and. 114 in another or imagine that every time you stepped on a scale it showed a different weight. The consistency of test scores is critically important in determining whether a test can provide good measurement. Measures the reliability of a test solely on the number of items on the test and the intercorrelation among the items. Therefore, it compares each item to every other item.