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APPLIED LINGUISTICS for BA Students in English EVALUATION The relationship of validity and reliability

المؤلف:  BÖLCSÉSZ KONZORCIUM

المصدر:  APPLIED LINGUISTICS for BA Students in English

الجزء والصفحة:  P136-C1

2026-10-25

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APPLIED LINGUISTICS for BA Students in English

EVALUATION

The relationship of validity and reliability

A test cannot be valid if it cannot provide consistently accurate measurements. It means that a valid test must be reliable, too. However, a reliable test may not be valid. It depends partly of what exactly we want to measure. For example, multiple choice tests can be made highly reliable especially if there are enough items, but performance on a multiple-choice test cannot be regarded a highly valid measure of one’s overall language ability. There is always some tension between reliability and validity. In order to maximize reliability it is often necessary to reduce validity. An oral test may be a valid measure but performance on it may be difficult to assess reliably. In practice there are only degrees of both that testers want to achieve, shortly there is a trade-off between the two: one is maximized at the expense of the other.