Reliability

Reliability refers to the consistency and repeatability of a measurement when the testing procedure is repeated on a population of individuals or groups. Knowing the reliability of particular assessments is particularly important for instructors who use standardized measures to assess the curriculum. Curricularists should ask about the reliability of measurement tools that they are expected to use in the classroom or within the school to determine its applicability. The usefulness of this score presupposes that individuals or groups exhibit some degree of stability in their behaviors. However, behaviors among the same person are rarely the same. Scores from an instrument should be stable; a higher degree of stability indicates higher reliability because the results are repeatable. The American Psychological Association has defined reliability as the ...