Post number two 🙂
Reliability is the ability to replicate a study and get similar results. Either from a person’s responses are consistent, or the general results are consistent.
A study is considered to be reliable if it produces the same results repeatedly. Reliability is important within Psychology in order for findings to be considered accurate and valid. If a set of data gathered from a study is considered to be reliable then it is much more likely to be considered scientific, rather than be taken as just an opinion with no real evidence. Without reliability we would not be able to explain anything, or prove any theories to be either correct or incorrect.
There are different ways to test reliability such as the Test-Retest reliability, Parallel-Forms, Inter-Rater, and Internal Consistency reliability. The test-retest method is statistical method designed to test the reliability of a test. It is used for things that stay consistent over time, for example you ask the same group of people to do a test twice with a certain time gap between the two tests. Using this test reliability is likely to be higher if the time gap between the two tests isn’t too long.
Reliability helps a psychological study to turn out to be precise and is an essential part of researching.