L4 - Types Of Validity - Assessing & Improving Validity

Question 1

Internal/experimental validity defined

Answer 1

• Concerns the legitimacy of what’s being measured in the actual study
• it’s the extent to which a test/study is investigating the true effect of the IV on the DV
• the researcher must make sure they are observing/measuring what they intend to

Question 2

Factors that can reduce internal/experimental validity

Answer 2

• Investigator effects - characteristics of research can affect the participants & the outcome of research (instead of IV affecting DV
• Demand characteristics - participants alter their behaviour affecting the outcome of the study
• confounding variables - variables other then IV that can impact result
• social desirability bias - ppt alters behaviour to be accepted by others
• lack of operationalisation - variables aren’t defined & measured which can affect results leading to low internal validity

Question 3

2 ways to assess validity

Answer 3

• concurrent validity
• face validity

Question 4

Concurrent validity

Answer 4

• way of establishing the internal validity of a new test where the scores gained are compared to an older, established test where the validity is already known
• if scores from both are similar with a positive correlation coefficient of +0.8 then the new test has high internal validity

Question 5

Face validity

Answer 5

• way to measure whether the test/measuring instrument is measuring what it’s supposed to
• 1 or more researchers can examine the test items/questions to see wether they are measuring what it set out to do
• would do this by looking at questions on the questionnaire & seeing ‘on the face of it’ whether the questions measure what they should
• would involve looking over the questions

Question 6

Improving concurrent validity

Answer 6

E.g. if it’s low on questionnaire then researcher can remove questions that seem irrelevant or ambiguous & then test concurrent validity again

Question 7

Improving face validity

Answer 7

• an expert can examine all the questions on the questionnaire & then they may decide that some questions aren’t a good measure of the topic being investigated & then they might improve/rewrite/re-word certain questions again

Question 8

How to reduce:
- investigator effects
- demand characteristics
- confounding variables

Answer 8

• double blind study
• single blind study
• confounding variables

Question 9

What is external validity & 2 types of it

Answer 9

• refers to factors outside of the research setting, how well the results can be generalised
• ecological validity
• temporal validity

Question 10

Ecological validity

Answer 10

• Ability to generalise research findings to other settings & contexts
• in particular to everyday life situations & settings high in mundane realism

Question 11

Temporal validity

Answer 11

• findings from a study that are from a different period of time & can be generalised to other historical time eras

Question 12

Assessing external validity

Answer 12

• meta analysis can be conducted, comparison of findings from a range of studies can be compared. Consistent findings from different research studies that have occurred across populations, locations & periods of time indicate high ecological validity
• environment should be naturalistic if the psychologist wishes to have high ecological validity, lab study may be low in this as setting is artificial & not natural
• assess how the DV was measured, the task given & the way its measured can affect EV. Task should have high mundane realism & should reflect the task that a person would be expected to do in everyday life
• assess whether the ppt were behaving as naturally as possible & ensure that demand characteristics have been minimised, ppt shouldn’t be aware of the true aim of the study as they will change their behaviour & this would have a dramatic effect on the DV which could result in low validity

Question 13

Improving external validity

Answer 13

• demand characteristics can be reduced, can be done via double blind study - psychologist & ppt don’t know true aim of study & what the research is investigating. Single blind study means only ppt don’t know true aim of study, deceived into believing study is about something else
• to improve ecological validity, some research can be carried out in naturalistic settings e.g. instead of a lab study carry out a field study or a covert observation. A field experiment & covert observation can ensure ppt behave more naturally & therefore improve ecological validity