L5 Validity

Question 1

How is validity determined empirically?

Answer 1

-Construct validity: the degree to which test scores can be interpreted as reflecting a particular psychological construct.

Question 2

Test content

Answer 2

• The match between the actual content of the test and the content that should be included in the test.
• If test scores are to be interpreted as indicators of a particular construct of interest, then the items included in the test should reflect the important facets of the construct.

Question 3

2 types of validity relevant to test content

Answer 3

1. Content validity

2. Face validity

Question 4

Content validity

Answer 4

A test may be suggested to be associated with good content validity when the items cover the entire breadth of the construct.

• However, the items can not exceed the boundaries of the construct (can not include construct-irrelevant content).
• Constructs such as personality suffer from clear boundaries which makes content validity assessment difficult

Question 5

Face Validity

Answer 5

Face validity represents the degree to which the items associated with a measure appear to be related to the construct of interest.

• This “appearance” is in the judgement of non-experts.
• Face validity is not crucial from a fundamental psychometric perspective.

Question 6

Content vs Face Validity

Answer 6

• Content validity can only realistically be assessed by experts in the field
• By contrast, face validity must be assessable by non-experts
• From this perspective, face validity is not considered an important form of construct validity evidence.