Making a Pie as a Metaphor for Teaching Scale Validity and Reliability

Abstract

Teaching difficulties often require creative approaches. Difficulties are often compounded when students in class show anxiety toward the material presented and, in particular, in the case of quantitative methods—“fear of numbers.” This case presented itself in an advanced course in health behavior theory, where teaching the concepts of validity and reliability became problematic. In this article, three classroom activities aiming at simplifying the concepts of validity and reliability are presented. The activities rely on the metaphor of scales being similar to the recipe of a pie, where different items in a scale would be similar to the ingredients of a pie. One activity addressing face validity, one addressing construct validity, and one for reliability (test-retest and internal consistency) will be described. In conclusion, the importance of using simple and relevant metaphors will also be stressed.