Reliability And Validity Dissertation Writing Assignment (Dissertation Sample)

Pilot Test Concepts to Determine Reliability and Validity
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Pilot Test Concepts to Determine Reliability and Validity
The core aim of the study was to develop a credible questionnaire to study the relationship between career management, job satisfaction, organizational culture, national culture power distance collectivism, employee retention, and job performance. It was, therefore, essential to judge the quality of the questionnaires as a measurement tool. This was determined by considering critical indicators such as reliability and validity of surveys. Validity refers to whether a research tool (questionnaires in this case) can measure the intended concept of the research while reliability shows whether the research tool provides a stable or consistent response (Bolarinwa, 2015). Reliability on the other hand refers to the degree to which the results obtained by a measurement and procedure can be replicated (Wellington & Szczerbinski, 2007). Since both security and the legitimacy of a measuring instrument contribute to measurement errors that would affect the research (Timmons, Johnson, & McCook, 2010), it was wise to validate the questionnaires to be used. A pilot test on a group of 61 respondents was therefore carried out to check the reliability of the questionnaire before its actual use in the research. In the course of the pilot study, oral feedback was obtained from the participants of the study to judge their understanding of the content of the questionnaires, identify unclear and confusing instructions or questions as well as get their view on the layout of the content and the time spent on the questionnaire. This would then pave the way for refinement of the inquiries where the need would arise. This section analyzes the different concepts of reliability and validity concerning the study and the results of the pilot test.
Based on the feedback obtained from the 61 frontline emloyees who completed the questionnaires during the pilot test, improvements were made to the questionnaires in terms of the content included, clarity of items, its layout and the length of questions. Some items in the questionnaire were also adjusted to fit the local context and language. These changes were advised by certain aspects of validity and reliability of a research tool. Essential aspects of validity considered included the content validity, the face validity and the construct validity of the questionnaires. Content validity is the level to which the elements of a measurement technique are important and representative of the hypothesis that they will be used to assess (Haynes, Richard, & Kubany, 1995). It is a measure of how much the tool addresses the subject matter of the study through fair questions to reveal information about the concept. Due to the absence of a statistical way or test to assess content validity, it is determined by the response of experts in the field of interest (Kelly, 2000). For this reason, the questionnaire was presented to an advisory group of management professionals for feedback. It had enough questions for each category (for example, there were 13 questions in the career management category while the minimum number of issues in a section was four). Therefore, the questionnaire passed the content validity test.
The face validity of the questionnaires was determined by considering the extent to which the polls appeared to measure the conceptual variables it is supposed to regulate. In this regard, all the queries in the survey were planned to collect information regarding the different groups ...