Validity

Question 1

What is Validity?

Answer 1

Whether a legitimate result is produced, reliable data is not necessarily valid as something can be consistently wrong

Question 2

What is Internal Validity?

Answer 2

Whether the effect observed are due to manipulation of the IV and not some other factor, demand characteristics damage internal validity

Question 3

What is External Validity?

Answer 3

Concerns generalising to other settings/periods/people. Ecological validity is a type of external validity (generalising to everyday life)
If the task that is used to measure the dependent variable is not like ‘everyday life’ (low mundane realism) this has lower ecological validity e.g using a word list

Question 4

What is Temporal Validity?

Answer 4

Whether said thing holds true over time e.g Freuds penis envy is outdated and sexist

Question 5

How is Validity Assessed?

Answer 5

• Face Validity: can be determined by ‘eyeballing’ the measuring instrument
• Concurrent Validity: when results match those obtained by another well-established test

Question 6

How to improve the Validity of an Experiment?

Answer 6

• Use of a control group
• standardised procedures
• single/double blind procedures

Question 7

How to improve the Validity of a Questionnaire?

Answer 7

• Incorporate a lie (to assess consistency and to control social desirability bias)
• Guarantee of anonymity

Question 8

How to improve the Validity of an Observation?

Answer 8

• Covert observation, objective Behavioural categories

Question 9

How to improve the Validity of Qualitative Research?

Answer 9

• Depth and detail means more ecological validity
• Interpretive Validity: How well a researchers interpretation of events match their partners
• Further enhanced by triangulation: the use of a number of a different sources of evidence e.g interviews and diaries