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Psychology vocabulary · Research Methods and Statistics

Validity

Meaning in psychology, with examples

/vəˈlɪdəti/nounCore term

In psychology, validity means: The extent to which a test really measures what it claims to measure, or to which a study's conclusions are justified by the way it was designed.

In Turkish: geçerlik, geçerlilik

How it is used

Used for measures (construct, content and criterion validity) and for studies (internal and external validity). Researchers establish or assess validity, and reviewers often ask about threats to validity.

Example sentences

  1. Before using the Turkish version, we tested its validity in a clinical sample.

  2. Testing only students limits the external validity of the findings.

Common collocations

  • construct validity
  • internal validity
  • external validity
  • threats to validity
  • validity and reliability
  • reliabilityHow consistent a measure is: a reliable test gives similar results when it is repeated, when different raters score it, or across its items.
  • psychometricRelating to the measurement of psychological qualities such as intelligence, personality and symptoms, and to the methods used to check how good those measures are.
  • confounding variableAn extra variable linked to both the supposed cause and the outcome, so that it may explain an apparent effect instead of the variable being studied.
  • sampleThe group of people actually studied in research, chosen from a larger population so that the results can, ideally, be generalised to it.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Research Methods and Statistics

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