threats to validity and reliability in quantitative research

According to a definition in a Research Methods Knowledge Base: “conclusion validity is the degree to which conclusions we reach about relationships in our data are reasonable” (Trochim, 2006, par.

However, this assumption can be proven faulty with the same statement that there is not enough information.

This is all the information given in a newspaper.Īlthough there is not enough information in the newspaper, it can be assumed that the research can be compromised by selection bias. In a published article about exercise, self-esteem, and happiness, the analysis shows, for women but not men, a high, positive correlation between the number of hours exercised per week and being childless or having no children under the age of 18 … the researcher concludes that women who have grown or no children are happier than those who have children at home. Case studyĪ case study for this paper shows that the validity of the results can only be assessed under one condition – there is enough data.

All of them should be taken into account when research is conducted so that the results would not be compromised. For external validity, these are history effects and maturation the “real world” versus the “experimental world” constructs, methods and confounding selection biases. For internal validity, they include experimenter effects and subject effects, compensation, compensatory rivalry, demoralization, diffusion (or imitation) of treatments, causal time order, experimental mortality, statistical regression, selection biases, instrumentation, testing effects, history effects and maturation. There are a few common threats to internal and external validity in quantitative research that are worth mentioning. According to Lærd Dissertation Guide, threats to the external validity of research are “any factors within a study that reduce the generalisability (or generality) of the results” ( Lærd Dissertation Guide, 2012, p.3), and threats to internal validity “are things that make it difficult to prove that the independent variable is causing the changes in the dependent variable” (Boyd, n.d. However, the methods used to conduct quantitative research, and the data gathered in it may be invalid or faulty. Threats to validity in quantitative research It is one of the most fundamental and widely used ways of producing information in both social and mathematical sciences.

According to a definition given in Business Dictionary, quantitative research implies “the use of sampling techniques (such as consumer surveys) whose findings may be expressed numerically, and are amenable to mathematical manipulation enabling the researcher to estimate future events or quantities” (“Quantitative Research”, 2015).

Threats to validity and reliability in quantitative research