“Reliable adjective able to be relied on; trustworthy. Reliably adverb, reliability noun” (Deverson, 1998, p. 340).
Reliability can be fickle in the sense that if the research that is being conducted, is not based on rigorous research that has gone before such as, theories of development i.e. ‘Piaget; cognitive-developmental theory’, ‘Bandura’s; social learning theory’ (Craine, 2000) etc and has no clear aim of research or methods such as questionnaires, interviews, observation, surveys etc then this will affect the integrity of the research. Muhammad, Muhammad and Muhammad (2008, p. 40) state “Since there can be no validity without reliability, a demonstration of the validity is sufficient to establish the reliability”. Meaning the reliability of the research subject has to have purpose and credential in order to know where to start.
In the early childhood field ‘Reliability’ is important for staff appraisals, management appraisals, parent feedback and staff feedback regarding management, professional development as well as researching recent trends. At the centre I am employed at we have in-house professional development that is called “Buzz group”, were we are given a recent trend in the early childhood sector and are given a week to gather research information and suggestion as to why it is important, and how we could implement it in our practice and why we would not implement it into our teaching practice. The reliability of this technique is great as we compare each