Validity and Ethics

Question 1

Validity

Answer 1

Validity refers to whether something is real or just an outcome of the research study that actually doesn’t represent reality.

Question 2

Internal validity

Answer 2

Internal validity concerns things inside a research study. It may be a question of whether we are actually testing what we actually intended to test.

Internal validity also concerns the question of control. It might be that other factors affected our findings.

Question 3

External validity

Answer 3

External validity is concerned with things outside the research study. To what extent can we generalise our research findings to other situations?

Question 4

Ethics in psychology

Answer 4

Ethics refers to standards of behaviour, behaving with due respect for the people or animals you are studying. In order to cause no psychological harm.