Green Living – and where i am now is EXTREMELY hazardous :(

was reading the copy of nov’07 reader’s digest and came upon this month’s feature entitled “Living Green” – Ranking the best (and worst) countries”. just to capture the ranking for each item of where i am now (sample size: 141):
Air Quality (rates concentration of several pollutants in urban areas): 140
Water Quality (rates pollutant levels as well as other factors that affect water purity): 124
Energy Effciency: 80
Greenhouse gases: 113
Environmetal health: 45
and from another analysis where major cities in the world were ranked (sample size:72) :
Rank: 71 *GASP*
with the above numbers, i’m sure you can easily find out where i am now (in case you arent aware, i’m away from singapore (ranked:45, has a lot of room for improvement tooï, 不要五十步笑百步)), just visit rd’s website for the full list. you may have to register (free and pretty fast registration process) to look at the full stats.

Reliability and Validity in Research

As cited in Golafshani, N. (2003):

Joppe (2000) defines reliability as:
…The extent to which results are consistent over time and an accurate representation of the total population under study is referred to as reliability and if the results of a study can be reproduced under a similar methodology, then the research instrument is considered to be reliable. (p. 1)
Joppe (2000) provides the following explanation of what validity is in quantitative research:
Validity determines whether the research truly measures that which it was intended to measure or how truthful the research results are. In other words, does the research instrument allow you to hit “the bull’s eye” of your research object? Researchers generally determine validity by asking a series of questions, and will often look for the answers in the research of others. (p. 1)

two other websites gathered via google search:
Reliability and Validity: What’s the Difference?
Colorado State University Writing Guide: Overview: Reliability and Validity