Students from a marketing research class are involved in a project about the level of sleep, exercise, and stress individuals experience. They have decided to collect data from three student-center areas on campus. When they analyze their data they find the responses are very similar across the three areas. The students feel comfortable they have achieved which of the following with regard to their data? a. reliability
b. causal relationships
c. validity
d. sampling accuracy
e. measurability

Reliability and validity reliability and validity are two important considerations that must be made with any type of data collection. reliability refers to the ability to consistently produce a given result. in the context of psychological research, this would mean that any instruments or tools used to collect data do so in consistent, reproducible ways. unfortunately, being consistent in measurement does not necessarily mean that you have measured something correctly. to illustrate this concept, consider a kitchen scale that would be used to measure the weight of cereal that you eat in the morning. if the scale is not properly calibrated, it may consistently under- or overestimate the amount of cereal that’s being measured. while the scale is highly reliable in producing consistent results (e. g., the same amount of cereal poured onto the scale produces the same reading each time), those results are incorrect. this is where validity comes into play. validity refers to the extent to which a given instrument or tool accurately measures what it’s supposed to measure. while any valid measure is by necessity reliable, the reverse is not necessarily true. researchers strive to use instruments that are both highly reliable and valid.

You hear your supervisor tell another supervisor that a fire drill will take place later today when the fire alarm sounds that afternoon you should

On april 1, the cash account balance was $46,220. during april, cash receipts totaled $248,600 and the april 30 balance was $56,770. determine the cash payments made during april.