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Applied Research Methods

Assessing Validity: concurrent validity and construct validity

  • 2 things to know
  • A2 Unit 4

Overview

Concurrent validity and how it is assessed numerically, how it differs from predictive validity, construct validity and how it is built up, and why a reliable measure can still lack validity.

What you need to know

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Evaluation

How is concurrent validity assessed numerically?

Evaluation

What is the weakness of judging a new test by concurrent validity alone?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Define concurrent validity.

    Model answer

    It is the extent to which a new measure agrees with an established measure of the same thing when both are given at the same time.

  2. 2

    How is concurrent validity assessed numerically?

    Model answer

    The same participants complete both the new measure and the established one, and the two sets of scores are correlated, with a coefficient of +0.80 or above taken as close agreement.

  3. 3

    What is the weakness of judging a new test by concurrent validity alone?

    Model answer

    The new test can never be shown to be better than the old one it is compared against, so if the established measure is itself flawed, agreement with it proves nothing.

  4. 4

    State the key difference between concurrent and predictive validity.

    Model answer

    Concurrent validity compares the measure with another measure taken at the same time, whereas predictive validity compares it with an outcome that occurs later.

  5. 5

    Define construct validity.

    Model answer

    It is the extent to which a measure genuinely captures the underlying theoretical construct it was built to assess.

  6. 6

    How is construct validity built up?

    Model answer

    By checking that the measure behaves as the theory predicts, correlating with the variables the construct ought to relate to and failing to correlate with those it ought not to.

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