Media & Publications

When is a bathroom scale unlike a political poll? When it’s reliable

In judging market research, courts of law consider at least three criteria: reliability, validity and pertinence. The definitions of these terms will be familiar to most readers. Reliability refers to the reproducibility of results and, for survey research, is significantly governed by the quality of the sampling process. Validity refers to the ability of a measurement instrument to measure accurately the intended object of analysis. Variations in interpretation are sometimes given through terms such as “external validity”, “predictive validity”, “construct validity”, “face validity”, or “convergent validity.” The third criterion, pertinence, refers to the relevance of the outcome to the issue in dispute, and is usually best left to the lawyers to battle out.

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