Validity

Question 1

What is validity?

Answer 1

• the extent to whether a method produces results that are genuine and represents what is the real world

Question 2

What is external validity?

Answer 2

• refers to the extent to which findings can be generalised beyond the research setting in which they are found e.g. populations, other settings, eras

Question 3

What is internal validity?

Answer 3

• Whether the researcher has managed to measure what they intended to measure
• whether the effects observed in an experiment are due to the manipulation of the IV and not another factor

Question 4

What threat is posed to internal validity?

Answer 4

• demand characteristics

Question 5

What are the types of external validity?

Answer 5

• ecological
  -temporal
  -population

Question 6

What is ecological validity?

Answer 6

• extent to which findings from a study can be generalised to other settings- most particular to everyday life

Question 7

What is temporal validity?

Answer 7

• extent to which findings from a study can be generalised to other historical times and eras

Question 8

What is mundane realism?

Answer 8

• task does not mirror everyday life

Question 9

What are the two ways of assessing validity?

Answer 9

• face validity
• concurrent validity

Question 10

What is face validity?

Answer 10

• basic form of validity in which a measure is scrutinised to determine whether it appears to measure what it is supposed to measure - does it look like it is?

Question 11

What is concurrent validity?

Answer 11

• the extent to which a psychological measure relates to an existing similar (known to be valid/well established) measure
• close agreement would indicate that the new test has high concurrent validity > exceeding .80 CC

Question 12

How to improve validity of a questionnaire?

Answer 12

• anonymity and lie scale > controls effects of social desirability bias and assesses consistency of a respondents response

Question 13

How to improve validity in a experiment?

Answer 13

• use control group
• standardise procedures/same investigator/double-blind/single-blind to minimise investigator effects & demand characteristics
• control of extraneous variables

Question 14

How to improve validity of observations?

Answer 14

• covert observation and unambiguous behavioural categories

Question 15

How to improve the validity of qualitative research?

Answer 15

• triangulation - use of a number of different sources as evidence. e.g. interviews, diaries, observations
  > demonstrates interpretive validity (extent to which the researcher interpretation of events matches their participants) of their conclusions

Question 16

How to reduce individual differences in IG?

Answer 16

• random allocation - each p assigned a number, placed the numbers in a random number generator/hat etc. assign p’s to either conditions
• match pairs design - match p’s on variables relevant to experiment (pre test e.g questionnaire before to attain), ps from each pair allocated to different conditions