Types of Validity. Flashcards
What is Validity?
The extent to which a concept or measurement accurately corresponds to the real world.
What is internal validity?
This refers to whether the effects observed in an experiment are due to the manipulation of the independent variable and not some other factor.
What is External Validity?
This refers more to factors outside of the investigation, such as generalising to other settings, other populations of people and other eras.
What would make a study lack internal validity?
Social desirability bias: Ppts may hide their genuine opinions and instead act in a more socially acceptable way to look good.
Demand Characteristics: Ppts may think that they have discovered the aim and behave in a way they believe will produce results supporting the researchers theory.
Investigator effects: the researchers behaviour/characteristics may influence the ppts behaviour. - body language/ tone of voice.
Uncontrolled extraneous variables: Lack of control due to unstandardised procedures.
lack of Random assignment.
What is Ecological Validity?
The extent to which findings of any particular study can be generalised to different environments.
Would behaviour be replicated if in a different environment?
What is Mundane realism?
The extent to which the task/activity that is set up are similar to the stimuli experienced in the real world.
What is population Validity?
The extent to which the sample used in the study is representative of the target population -gender, age,. ethnicity, education level.
What is Temporal Validity?
It is the extent to which findings of a study cane be generalised to other time periods.
Would the findings on topics like attachment and social influence be the same if researches conducted the study in modern society?
What is Face validity?
Does the test appear to measure what it claims to be measuring?
What is Criterion validity
Confidence in the validity of a test increases if we can compare the data from a test to another measure of the same variable and identify a correlation.
What is predicative Validity?
The extent to which performance on a test can predict future performance/behaviour.
-GCSE scores predict A-level results.
What can improve Internal Validity?
It can be improved by obtaining a high level of control over variables. This ensures that the researcher measures any potential cause-and-effect relationship between the IV and DV.
How can variables be controlled to improve internal validity?
Random allocation- controls participant variables
Standard procedures- controls extraneous variables
Counterbalancing - Controls order effects.
Single and double blind trials - Controls Researcher bias and demand characteristics
Peer review - Controls researcher bias.
What can improve external validity?
It can be improved by demonstrating that findings can be generalised.
Replication ensures the cause-and-effect relationship observed in the original study is nit just limited to one experiment.
How can external validity be improved?
Replicate findings in different settings to improve ecological validity.
replicate findings with diverse groups of people improves population validity.
Replicate historical studies improves the temporal validity.
Replicate findings using realistic tasks improve Mundane realism.
