Aresearcher conducts a survey of people who use anxiety medications, recruited through an advertisement in the local paper. the researcher promises confidentiality, but accidentally leaves a folder of signed consent forms at a cyber cafe. the manager of the cafe looks through the folder so it can be returned to right patron. the researcher has violated:

This exercise illustrates that poor quality can affect schedules and costs. a manufacturing process has 130 customer orders to fill. each order requires one component part that is purchased from a supplier. however, typically, 3% of the components are identified as defective, and the components can be assumed to be independent. (a) if the manufacturer stocks 130 components, what is the probability that the 130 orders can be filled without reordering components? (b) if the manufacturer stocks 132 components, what is the probability that the 130 orders can be filled without reordering components? (c) if the manufacturer stocks 135 components, what is the probability that the 130 orders can be filled without reordering components?

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.

Identify and describe a variety of performance rating scales that can be used in organizations including graphical scales, letter scales, and numeric scales.