Unit 1 -- Validity Types

Intro:

Validity means "accuracy" or "correctness". We want our research results to be valid -- to be an accurate portrayal of what we want to study.

Goal:

This exercise will give you practice at identifying the four major types of research validity:

  • External validity -- the generalizability or applicability of the results
  • Internal validity -- the causal interpretability of the results
  • Measurement validity -- whether the measures and variables we use represent the concepts and constructs we want to study
  • Statistical conclusion validity -- whether the relationships between the variables in our study represent the "real" relationships the constructs have in the target population

Topics:

There are four topics in this exercise:

  1. Identifying when external validity is the "issue"
  2. Identifying when internal validity is the "issue"
  3. Identifying when measurement validity is the "issue"
  4. Identifying when statistical conclusion validity is the "issue"

Reading:

This PowerPoint will describe research validity, the four major types and get you read for the web-based exercise. Prelude to the Research Validity Lecture (pdf). At first these types of validity will just be "words" -- learn the words and they will take on more "meaning" as we work with and apply them.

Exercise:

Go to the Psyc350 Canvas section, open the Modules & look in “Unit 1 Pink Things” --  complete the exercise titled  U1 -- Validity Types Prelude

Due Date:

Please have this done before the next lecture -- we will be building on this information then!