In the refereed journal you are reading, the researchers state that the validity and reliability of the instruments used in their study were established at an acceptable level. You are unfamiliar with the instruments used. You believe that to critically review this section of the report it is necessary to find out how the validity and reliability of these instruments were determined and the

Question

criteria used to determine acceptability. How would you proceed? Include in your discussion how you could use technology to help you, and support your position with examples.

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

ANSWERS Space constraints in journal publications often limit the amount of detail that researchers are able to provide about the reliability and validity testing of the measures they have used in their study. As consumers of research, nurses may have to look beyond the research paper to find the ‘evidence' to support the researchers' assertions of validity and reliability to have confidence in the results of the study. Seeking out additional information does not need to be onerous and some suggestions are offered below: 1. Scan the reference list of the paper being reviewed to ascertain whether other papers have been published that have psychometrically tested the scale (i.e., assessed reliability and validity) and if so, access the library catalogue for these publications. 2. Access the university library catalogue and perform a database search of the instrument(s) using a search engine such as the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) database. 3. Access Google Scholar to perform a database search of the instrument(s).