Without the agreement of independent observers able to replicate research procedures, or the ability to use research tools and procedures that yield consistent measurements, researchers would be unable to satisfactorily draw conclusions, formulate theories, or make claims about the generalizability of their research. Reliability is the extent to which an experiment, test, or any measuring procedure yields the same result on repeated trials. These related research issues ask us to consider whether we are studying what we think we are studying and whether the measures we use are consistent.
