Validity and Reliability Flashcards
Research Methods
What is the general definition of validity?
Whether a measure actually measures what it claims to be measuring.
What is internal validity?
Whether the researcher is measuring the influence of the IV on the DV.
What is the definition of face validity?
How good the research looks to be at testing what it is meant to be testing (based off of subjective opinion).
What is the definition of construct validity?
Where a test or study measures the actual behaviour it sets out to measure.
What is the definition of concurrent validity?
Where a test/ research gives you the same results as another study that claims to measure the same behaviour.
What is the definition of criterion validity?
How much of the one measure predicts the value of another measure.
What is external validity?
Whether the results of the research can be generalised to other settings, because they were done in realistic settings or have a representative.
What is the definition of population validity?
How accurately the study is measuring the behaviour of the general population.
What is the definition of ecological validity?
How like real life a piece of research is.
List the threats to validity.
- Social desirability bias
- Demand characteristics
- Response bias
- Order effects
- Researcher bias
- Extraneous variables
What is response bias?
When participants choose the middle number on a rating scale.
What is the general definition of reliability?
Whether something is consistent or not.
What is internal reliability?
If every question on the test is measuring the same thing.
What is external reliability?
The extent to which one measure of a behaviour matches another measure of the same behaviour.
Describe the split- half method.
- If a psychological test contains several items, these are split/ divided randomly into two sets each (half the test)
- If the test is reliable the scores of both halves of subjects should be similar.
