Reliability means that the score for any individual is the 'true' score for that individual, i.e., that the score would be repeated if the individual retook the assessment test(i.e., the test/retest measure). Reliability estimates are typically reported on a range of 0.0 to 1.0, with 1.0 being perfect. 0.7 is generally held to be the minimum acceptable reliability measure for tests similar to the Highlands Ability Battery™.

Because the worksamples composing the Battery are different in format from each other, as well as in the behavior being examined, each worksample is measured separately.

A large-sample study of reliability showed a reliability range for the individual worksamples of .83 to .95. The study involved 298 participants, ranging in age from 15 to 66. There were 146 males and 152 females. Of the adults over the age of 25, almost all were college graduates. Most of the participants who were younger than 25 were either college students or former college students.

Validity is the certainty with which we can ascribe a contextual significance to a given score on a given test with a given person, i.e., the confidence with which we can interpret any given test result. In simple terms, the test should measure what it claims to measure – in this case, human abilities.

Validity can be measured in a variety of ways for tests similar to the Highlands Ability Battery™. Validity research has been an ongoing function of the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation, forerunner of the Highlands Battery, for over 50 years and of The Highlands Company since its inception in the early 1990s. All together, hundreds of studies have demonstrated the essential validity of the individual worksamples composing the Highlands Ability Battery™. Many of the individual components in other assessment tools are similar in construction to related worksamples in the Highlands Battery, and it is possible to draw parallel validity results by measuring one instrument against another.

A study of norms conducted in 2002 by the Chauncey group, an ETS affiliate confirmed that the norms assigned by Highlands to scores on the Ability Battery were essentially replicated over 4,307 individual test records.

Over the years, more than 12,000 individuals have experienced one or another version of the Highlands Ability Battery™. In a recent survey, a class of graduate students at Colorado State University ranked the Highlands Ability Battery™ #1 in effectiveness in measuring abilities. The Battery was measured against three other assessments which are widely used.

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