Validity!

Question 1

Validity

Answer 1

Refers to whether an observed effect is a genuine one.

Question 2

Internal validity

Answer 2

concerns about what goes on within a study

eg: investgator effects, demand characteristics, social desirability bias etc

Question 3

External validity

Answer 3

Concerns generalising the findings of a study to other people (population validity, historical periods (historical or temporal validity) and settings (ecological validity).

Question 4

Types of validity

Answer 4

face validity
concurrent validity
ecological validity
temporal validity

Question 5

Ecological validity

Answer 5

The ability to generalise a research effect beyond the particular setting in which it is demonstrated to other settings

Question 6

Mundane realism (part of ecological)

Answer 6

Refers to how a study mirrors the real world. The research environment is realistic to the degree to which experiences encountered in the research environment will occur in the real world.

Question 7

Face validity

Answer 7

(Way of assessing validity)

The extent to which test items look like what the test claims
to measure.

Question 8

Temporal validity

Answer 8

Concerning the ability to generalise a research effect
beyond the particular time period of the study.

Question 9

Concurrent validity

Answer 9

(Way of assessing validity)

A means of establishing validity by comparing an existing test or questionnaire with the one you are interested in.

Question 10

Ways of assessing validity

Answer 10

Face validity
Concurrent validity

Question 11

Improving validity

Answer 11

If the questionnaire is judged to have poor face validity then the questions should be revised so they relate more obviously to the topic.

If concurrent validity is low then the researcher should remove questions which may seem irrelevant and try checking the concurrent validity again.

In the case of internal and external validity issues described on the facing page, improvements should come from better research design.
For example, double-blind can be used to prevent participants guessing research aims (neither the person running the study nor the participant knows the aims of a study).