Reproducibility

Reproducibility is the variation of outcomes of an experiment carried out in conditions varying within a typical range, e.g. when measurement is carried out by the same device by different operators, in different laboratories, etc.

For example, reproducibility of measurements of mechanical scales is the variation of weight values reported for the same mass by different persons, in the range of normal operation conditions, e.g. the temperature from 10 to 40 degrees Celsius and the relative humidity from 30 to 98%.

Statistical measures of variability, e.g. the variance or standard deviation, are often used to quantify reproducibility.

Reproducibility is often considered in conjunction with repeatability; there is even a common acronym for this pair – “R&R”.