PSYB01H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient, Inter-Rater Reliability, Operational Definition
Document Summary
Psychologists use self-report measures to study psychological attributes ex, intelligence, self-esteem etc. Reliability = the consistency or stability of a measure of behaviour. A reliable measure does not fluctuate from one measurement instance to the next ex, intelligence score today should be the same if tested tomorrow. A more formal way of understanding reliability is to use the concepts of true score and measurement error. True score - perso(cid:374)"s real s(cid:272)ore o(cid:374) the (cid:448)aria(cid:271)le. Measurement error - little measurement error = reliable. Determine correlation between x1 + x2 = representation of the true score carried over. Variance of true scores (t) /variances of the meaure (x) Reliability is important for any operation definition because unreliable measures would be useless in building a table. Reliability is most likely to be achieved when researchers use careful measurement procedures ex, training people to record behaviour well, making multiple observations etc.