Ideas for future development of the Inclusion Web as a research tool

Test/re-test reliability

Carry out a test/re-test exercise in order to find out if the Inclusion Web measures consistently.

Inter-rater reliability

Inter-rater reliability needs to be established by asking several people to simultaneously score the same person who is completing the Inclusion Web. If each rater awards similar scores, then inter-rater reliability will have been established.

External validity

After reliability has been established, the measure should be tested for external validity. To develop external validity we need to capture quantitative data from a large sample that is representative of the general population and then analyse this using inferential statistics to see whether the concepts remain. If the concepts hold up, then we can state that our findings are replicable within the population as a whole and the research can therefore be generalised.

Internal validity

Are we collecting data that actually measures and supports the concept of separate Life Domains? There may be additional concepts that arise that we have not yet identified. Alternatively, there may be sufficient interplay between two of the life domains that one may be treated as redundant and removed from the Inclusion Web, or the two domains merged. This correlation between life domains could be examined with a ‘reliability of scale’ test.

Criterion validity

A number of other tests could be used with a sample of people in order to find out if there is a correlation between changes in the Inclusion Web over time and changes in tools with established validity in this field. If these variables move up and down together, this will confer some reliability on the Inclusion Web.