Face, Content & Construct Validity
• Kinds of attributes we measure
• Face Validity
• Content Validity
• Construct Validity
– Discriminant Validity ÆConvergent & Divergent evidence
• Summary of Reliability & Validity types and how they
are demonstrated
What are the different types of “things we measure” ???
The most commonly discussed types are ...
• Achievement -- “performance” broadly defined (judgements)
• e.g., scholastic skills, job-related skills, research DVs, etc.
• Attitude/Opinion -- “how things should be” (sentiments)
• polls, product evaluations, etc.
• Personality -- “characterological attributes” (keyed sentiments)
• anxiety, psychoses, assertiveness, etc.
There are other types of measures that are often used…
• Social Skills -- achievement or personality ??
• Aptitude -- “how well some will perform after then are trained and
experiences” but measures before the training & experience”
• some combo of achievement, personality and “likes”
•IQ -- is it achievement (things learned) or is it “aptitude for
academics, career and life” ??
Face Validity
• Does the test “look like” a measure of the construct of interest?
• “looks like” a measure of the desired construct to a member
of the target population
• will someone recognize the type of information they are
responding to?
• Possible advantage of face validity ..
• If the respondent knows what information we are looking for,
they can use that “context” to help interpret the questions
and provide more useful, accurate answers
• Possible limitation of face validity …
• if the respondent knows what information we are looking for,
they might try to “bend & shape” their answers to what they
think we want -- “fake good” or “fake bad”
