General Terms

• Increasing Accuracy - the degree to which the result conforms to its correct value

  • increase quality
  • reduce systematic error
• Increasing Precision - maximising resolution of a measurement

  • using equipment with a higher resolution
• Increasing Validity - how appropriate the experiment is to obtain the aim of experiment


  • increase quality/accuracy
• Increasing Reliability - how close several measurements are to each other

  • repeat experiment
  • add more control variable
  • have other people do the experiment
  • take out anomalies
• Systematic error - measurement will vary

  • bad equipment
  • take out anomalies
  • repeated using a different technique
• Random error - unpredictable, inaccurate measurements

  • take multiple readings and work out mean
• Zero error - reading measurement from starting value other than zero

  • use different equipment