Ensuring Validity and Reliability in Your Research Project: A Student’s Guide

Embarking on a research project as a student is an exciting journey filled with discovery and learning. However, ensuring the validity and reliability of your research findings is paramount to the success and credibility of your study. In this blog post, we’ll explore different types of validity and reliability measures that every student researcher should incorporate into their project.

Internal Validity:
Internal validity refers to the extent to which your study accurately reflects the true relationship between variables. To ensure internal validity, it’s essential to control for extraneous variables that could influence your results. Consider randomizing participant assignment to experimental conditions to minimize bias and increase the reliability of your findings.

External Validity:
External validity pertains to the generalizability of your findings to real-world settings and populations. To enhance external validity, strive for ecological validity by designing your study to resemble real-life situations. Additionally, ensure that your sample accurately represents the target population to increase the external validity of your results.