Types of Validity Flashcards
What is validity?
Concerns accuracy, the degree to which something measures what it claims to.
How accurately a study investigates what it claims to and the extent to which findings can be generalised beyond research settings as a consequence of a study’s internal and external validity.
How can validity be improved?
Validity can be improved by improving reliability, internal validity, and external validity.
What is internal validity?
Concerns whether results are due to the manipulation of the IV and have not been affected by confounding variables.
What is external validity?
Refers to the extent to which an experimental effect can be generalised to other settings, other people, and over time.
Milgram’s electric shock study lacked external validity, as it is not usual to shock people for getting questions wrong, the study only used male participants and was a product of its time.
How can internal validity be improved?
Reducing investigator effects.
Minimising demand characteristics.
Using standardised instructions.
Using a random sample.
These factors ensure a study is highly controlled, leaving less doubt that observed effects are due to poor methodology.
How can external validity be improved?
External validity can be improved by setting experiments in more naturalistic settings.
What are the 4 ways of assessing validity?
Concurrent validity.
Predictive validity.
Descriptive validity.
Aetiological validity.
Outline concurrent validity as a means of assessing validity.
Assesses validity by correlating scores on a test with another test known to be valid.
Outline predictive validity as a means of assessing validity.
Assesses validity by predicting how well a test predicts future behaviour.
Outline aetiological validity as a means of assessing validity.
To be valid, all patients with the same disorder should have the same cause.
Outline descriptive validity as a means of assessing validity.
To be valid, patients diagnosed with different disorders should differ from each other.
What is face validity?
A means of assessing validity which involves ‘eyeballing” the extent to which something measures what it claims to.
What is temporal validity?
A type of external validity concerning the extent to which the findings of studies remain true over time.
