Deck 7: A: Survey Design and Scale Construction: Is Going Greek a Great Idea

Question 1

What is the major difference between reliability and validity? Is it possible to have a scale that is reliable,but not valid? If so,how?

Answer 1

Reliability refers to a measure's consistency or stability;validity focuses on accuracy and precision.A useful analogy to understand reliability and validity is to picture a dart board.Someone can throw a dart and repeatedly hit the same wrong spot.In this case,it would be reliable,as it consistently hits the same spot on the dart board,but it would not be valid (accurate)because it does not hit the bull's-eye.

Question 2

Define what a correlational study evaluates and develop your own simple correlational study with two variables.

Answer 2

A correlational study examines associates between variables and how a change in one variable influences changes in the associated variable.An example of a correlational study is the association between temperature and ice cream sales.It is hypothesized that higher temperatures result in higher ice cream sales.

Question 3

Define open-ended and closed-ended questions then develop a brief interview using at least two open-ended questions and two closed-ended questions to examine the variables of family environment and academic performance.

Answer 3

An open-ended question asks the participants to use their own words to describe a situation and permits elaboration.A closed-ended question uses a predetermined set of responses.When interviewing a participant for a study examining family environment and academic performance some helpful open-ended questions may be: What is your family like? What types of academic classes do you enjoy? Examples of appropriate closed-ended questions may be: How many siblings do you have? Did you pass all of your high school classes?

Question 4

Identify a real-life scale that is used on a frequent basis by individuals and discuss why it is considered a scale.

Question 5

Define convergent and discriminant validity.Discuss an example of two variables you would suspect to have high convergent validity and two variables you would suspect to have high discriminant validity.