validty

Question 1

validity

Answer 1

whether the result produced is legitimate

includes -
whether the researcher has managed to measure what they intended to measure (internal validity)

the extent to which findings can be generalised beyond the research setting (external validity)

Question 2

internal validity

Answer 2

whether the effect observed in an experiment are due to the manipulation of the independent variable and not some other factor

one major threat is participants respond to demand characteristics and act in the way they think is expected

Question 3

external validity

Answer 3

relates more ot factors outside of the investigation such as generalising to other settings, other populations of people and other eras

ecological validity - type of external validity
concerned generalising findings from a study to other setting mostly everyday life

Question 4

temporal validity

Answer 4

issue of whether findings from a particular study or concepts within a particular theory hold true over time

Question 5

ways of assessing validity

Answer 5

face validity - whether a test scale or measure appears to measure what it is supposed to measure

can be determined by simply eyeballing the measuring instrument or by passing it to an expert to check

the concurrent validity of a particular test or scale is demonstrated when the results obtained are very close to or match those obtained on another recognised and well-established test

Question 6

improving validity - experiments

Answer 6

control group - researcher is better able to assess whether changes in the dependent variable were due to the effect of the independent variable

standardise procedures - to minimise the impact of participant reactivity and investigator affects on the validity of the outcome
single blind and double blind

Question 7

improving validity - questionnaires

Answer 7

many questionnaires and psychological tests incorporate a lie scale within the questions in order to assess the consitistenvy of a respondents response

and to control for the effect of social desibaloty bias

Question 8

improving validity - observations

Answer 8

observational research may produce findings that have high ecological validity as there may be minimal intervention by the researcher

especially the case if the observer remains undetected such as in covert observations

Question 9

improving validity -qualitative research

Answer 9

qualitative methods of research are usually thought of as having higher ecological validity than quantitative

due to depth and detail

however a research may still have to demonstrate the interpretative validity - extent to which the researchers interpretation of events matches that of their participants

can be demonstrated through coherenace of the researchered narrative and ther inclusion on direct quotes form partipacnts

validity is further enhanced through triganulation - the use of a number of different sources as evidence