Chapter 5: Reliability

For each measure below, indicate which kinds of reliability would need to be evaluated. Explain your answer.

1. Researchers place unobtrusive video recording devices in the living rooms of 20 children. Later, coders view tapes and code how many minutes each child spends playing video games.

2. Clinical psychologists have developed a seven-item self-report measure to quickly identify people who are at risk for panic disorder.

3. Psychologists measure how long it takes a mouse to learn an eye blink response. For 60 trials, they present a mouse with a distinctive blue light followed immediately by a puff of air. The fifth, tenth, and fifteenth trials are test trials, in which they present the blue light alone (without the air puff).

The mouse is said to have learned the eye blink response if observers record that it blinked its eyes in response to a blue light test trial. The earlier in the 60 trials the mouse shows the eye blink response, the faster it has learned the response.

4. A restaurant owner uses a response card with four items in order to evaluate how satisfied customers are with the food, service, ambience, and overall experience. Each item is scaled from one to four stars.

5. Educational psychologists use teacher ratings of classroom shyness (on a nine-point scale, where 1 = "not at all shy in class" and 9 = "very shy in class") to measure children's temperament.