A Comparison of Reliability Measures for Continuous and Discontinuous Recording Methods: Inflated Agreement Scores With Partial Interval Recording and Momentary Time Sampling for Duration Events

Abstract

The authors evaluated the extent to which interobserver agreement (IOA) scores, using the block-by-block method for events scored with continuous duration recording (CDR), were higher when the data from the same sessions were converted to discontinuous methods. Sessions with IOA scores of 89% or less with CDR were rescored using 10-s partial interval recording (PIR) and 10-s momentary time sampling (MTS). Results indicated that IOA scores for 10-s PIR and 10-s MTS were consistently higher than IOA scores based on CDR for the same sessions. Specifically, 10-s MTS provided higher overestimations for low-duration events, whereas 10-s PIR produced higher overestimations for moderate- and high-duration events. Implications for researchers and clinicians are briefly discussed.