Reliability and Validity Assessment [Paperback]

This guide explains how social scientists can evaluate the reliability and validity of empirical measurements, discussing the three basic types of validity: criterion related, content, and construct. In addition, the paper shows how reliability is assessed by the retest method, alternative-forms procedure, split-halves approach, and internal consistency method.

Edward G. Carmines is Warner O. Chapman Professor of Political Science and Rudy Professor at Indiana University. He is also the director of the Center on American Politics and the research director at the Center on Congress at Indiana University. His research focuses on American politics, especially elections, public opinion, and political behavior. He has published widely in the major journals in the discipline including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and Journal of Politics. He is the coauthor of seven books, two of which, Issue Evolution: Race and Transformation of American Politics, with James A. Stimson (Princeton University Press 1992), and Reaching beyond Race, with Paul M. Sniderman (Harvard University Press 1997), won the American Political Science Association's Gladys M. Kammerer Award for best book in the field of U.S. national policy. Four of his papers presented at academic conferences have won outstanding paper awards, including the Franklin L. Burdette Pi Sigma Alpha Award, the Pi Sigma Alpha Award, and the Chastain Award. Professor Carmines was a Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford in 1998, a Fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University in 2000-01, and a Fellow at the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University in 2006-07. In 1987 he was awarded the AMOCO Award for Distinguished Teaching from Indiana University. Richard A. Zeller, Ph.D., 64, retired professor of statistics in the College of Nursing at Kent State University, died of malignant melanoma cancer on Thursday, April 16, at his home. Zeller retired in May 2008 but maintained his professional activity until shortly before his death. Dr. Zeller was fond of saying that he was "...in the business of jump-starting professional careers." He served on many thesis and dissertation committees, and worked with students and colleagues on the research design and statistical analysis of social and biological data. His clients were both local and international. He served as statistician on research projects in Thailand, Taiwan, Zambia, Scotland, and Ireland. He worked on research projects in hospitals and universities across America. Zeller is the author of three books and more than 90 published professional research articles. Zeller's professorial career was 40 years in length. He earned a BA degree from LaVerne College (California) and MA and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He held professorial positions at the University of Minnesota, the State University of New York in Buffalo, and Bowling Green State University prior to his professorial position at Kent State University. Zeller's greatest professional satisfaction was assisting in improving the statistical sophistication of nursing research. The result of this activity enhanced the professionalization of the discipline of nursing. He often said that the judgment of nurses needs to be included in patient care decisions on pain management, patient constraint, diet, and a wide range of patient well-being issues for which the nurses' knowledge of patients provides valuable input.