Task 4 RA2 Evaluating the Reliability and Validity

In this task, you will write a structured response evaluating the overall reliability and validity of the secondary evidence you used in your research investigation.

You should make an overall judgement about both reliability and validity, justify your reasoning using features of your evidence, and explain how well the evidence enabled your research question to be addressed.

Important information about this activity This activity is designed to help you practise evaluating the reliability and validity of evidence and how well it enables your research question to be addressed.

The system will provide feedback on how clearly you make overall judgements and justify them using features of the evidence.

However, it will not check:

• whether your judgement about reliability or validity is completely correct
• whether you have identified all relevant strengths or weaknesses in the evidence
• whether your evaluation is the best possible interpretation

It is your responsibility to:

• ensure your evaluation is scientifically accurate
• justify your reasoning clearly using evidence
• make sure your response directly addresses your research question

All evidence used to evaluate reliability and validity must be included in your printed logbook. If your teacher cannot locate the referenced evidence, your evaluation cannot be verified and may not be fully credited.

Evaluate the reliability and validity of the evidence and how well it enabled your research question (RQ) to be addressed.

In your response, make an overall judgement about the reliability and validity of your evidence. Justify each judgement using features of the evidence (e.g. consistency, amount of data, relevance, or missing variables).

Then explain how well the evidence allowed your research question to be addressed.

Do not make a detailed list of limitations again for each source (this should have been completed in an earlier task). Limitations may be mentioned briefly to support your evaluation, but your focus should be on overall judgement.

Write your response in third person scientific style (do not use “I” or “we”).