Question

Q8 Write an essay of 1000+ words on the topic ‘The criteria of validity and reliability in the context of business research’. [Marks 8]

PLEASE NOTE: WORD COUNT HAS TO BE MORE THAN 1000 WORDS.

Answer 1

CRITERIA OF VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY IN CONTEXT OF BUSINESS RESEARCH

Business research is a crucial stage and process to any kind of business as this is the time when a business decides to invest their fund to find out something valuable. Business research is the process of acquiring information and using it for developing the business. A research could be made to know about the sale, demand of products, new market opportunities, likes and dislikes of customers, profit of the business etc. These research help the business to identity new opportunities and increase their business. For a business research to be precise many things have to kept in mind that is it is important to make sure that the research is valid and reliable. These are the two important criteria of any business research. Reliability is the faith and trust that we have on the information obtained from the research and validity is the accuracy of test of measurement and to know if it measured what it was supposed to measure. validity and reliability is the two criteria which increases transparency in the research work done and decreases the bias of the researcher.

Reliability means the extend to which the same results are obtained if the research is repeated many number of times. If the research he conducted does not lead to same result it is said to be lesa reliable and the purpose of the research work is not fulfilled. There are both internal and external reliability. Internal reliability means how well the research is measured and what the researcher wanted to measure. External reliability means how the research conducted could be generalised more than for personel use. Reliability can also be divided as follows,

• Test retest reliability :- when a research is conducted and the result is measured for a period of time and the same result is obtained throughout the time period it is said to be test retest reliability. In this a group of people is taken to measure and on later period same set of people are again taken for the study of the same topic and a test retest correlation between two sets of scores are taken.
• Internal consistency :- It means the consistency of response of people across the different items on a multiple choice. The correlation of the people's choice indicates the reliability. If a high degree of correlation is seen then it indicates high reliability.
• Inter-rater reliability :- There maybe difference of judgement on the part of observer or the researcher. Inter rater reliability records the conisistency of study by being conducted by different researcher.

Another important criteria is validity. It refers to the extend of which the scores from a measure represent the variable they are intended to do. If the research is reliable it should also be considered that the scores are representing what they are supposed to be measured. The different types of validity are

• Face validity :- this is the minimum of measurement index of the study and it is identified after the study has been conducted. This validity ensures that a research measures what it claims to do.
• Content validity :- It ensures the measure covers all the subject of interest. Content validity is a qualitative measurement it measures the method against conceptual definition of the subject.
• Criterion validity :- it measures the future occurance by the present performance. It finds the correlation of a set if criterion of interest with another. It defines the relationship of variables and how they are correlated.
• Concurrent validity :- it is the validity in which happens in the present time that is the test is related to the scores on another that are already established to be valid and designed to measure the same construct at the same time.
• Predictive validity :- it is used to predict some criteria to be happened in future at some point of time.if the correlation between the criterion and Prediction is high iindicates higher Predictive validity.
• Discriminant validity :- it means the extend to which the scores on a measure are not correlated with measures of variables that are distinct conceptually.
• Convergent validity :- it means the extend to which scores on the research share high, medium, and low relationship score obtained on a different measure for measuring same construct.

Thereby validity and reliability is must in any kind of research but also it involves some risk and threat that is many times these two criteria is sometimes comprised by the researchers. Error and carelessness are that casues problems. If the questionnaire are not presented properly or the objectives are not set clearly then it causes errors.

To conduct a good research validity and reliability is to be ensured and should be performed by carefull assessment and validation. A good researchers ensures these two criterias well and then only better results are obtained.