What does reliability in assessment refer to?

Reliability in assessment refers to the consistency of assessment results over time and across different situations. This means that if an assessment is reliable, repeated measurements under similar conditions will yield similar results. For instance, if a student takes the same physical fitness test multiple times, a reliable assessment would produce consistent scores, indicating that the test is dependable and that the measurements reflect true performance levels rather than random variations.

In practical terms, high reliability is crucial in sports and kinesiology settings as it ensures that the evaluations of a person's abilities or progress are stable and trustworthy. This consistency allows practitioners to make accurate decisions regarding training programs, interventions, and progress tracking for individuals, offering confidence that changes observed are genuine rather than artifacts of fluctuating measurements.

While fairness in the assessment process and the absence of bias are important considerations (the fairness of the assessment process does play into validity but not directly to reliability), they do not specifically pertain to reliability. Similarly, the accuracy of an assessment related to measuring an intended variable speaks to validity rather than reliability itself, as reliability focuses solely on the consistency of the assessment results without judging how well it measures the intended skill or attribute.