Research Validity
Can anyone conduct a research? Sure… every one can. But the question is “How valid is it?”
From simple research to academic and profound, a question of validity is not something we can take for granted. Validity is a mark that tells how useful and how reliable a finding is. Everyday, we feed on information. Sometimes, we check whether what we put in our brain is true or not. Sometimes, we don’t. The latter if becomes a habit produces a brain filled with incorrect information later creating a misinformed public.
The validity of the data we put in our brain affects the value of what we know, what we say, and what we do. Having invalid data in our box of knowledge may hinder us from performing well whether at school, at work or where ever: worse we make replicas of us.
We should be aware that we respond, we talk, we think, we do and we decide based on the knowledge we have.
What does validity mean?
A friend once told me “if you are the valid person, I can validate your suggestion…”
Oxford says validity is the quality of being logically or factually sound; soundness or cogency. Merriam, meantime, says validity is a state of being well-grounded or justifiable : being at once relevant and meaningful, logically correct and that which shows appropriate to an end in view.
In Research, it is meeting the required criteria of internal validity and external validity of a study. I believe that a piece of information be it a research, just a bit of news, a song or anything even a rumor or gossip carries mark of internal and external validity. As a reader, one should be aware of the quality of what he reads lest he ends up in a dreamland and wakes up to find reality is about to hang him.
To put it in a picture, here is an overview of what validity is - provided by socialresearch.net
This shows a relationship of four factors that intermingle to produce desired taste of validity. With this, a study is accepted and labeled valid. Ask yourself these questions when you do a research:
Conclusion Validity: In this study, is there a relationship between the two variables?
Construct Validity: Assuming that there is a causal relationship in this study, can we claim that the program reflected well our construct of the program and that our measure reflected well our idea of the construct of the measure?
Internal Validity: Assuming that there is a relationship in this study, is the relationship a causal one?
External Validity: Assuming that there is a causal relationship in this study between the constructs of the cause and the effect, can we generalize this effect to other persons, places or times?
(William M.K. Trochim 2008)
The Source of Validity
To me, validity doesn’t only encompass the circles of external and internal validity. Validity is also under the control of the researcher and the reader - The researcher as the source (where a product comes out from) and the reader as wise consumer. I believe the validity of information given by a researcher maybe filtered and marked by the aforementioned criteria. I agree that such methods and procedures hugely shape the quality and truthfulness of information we get. I strongly support that such measures should be undertaken in research.
On the other hand, I reckon that the greatest factor for research validity is the validity of the researcher to make a valid research. What is researcher validity? There is an unending list of requirements but we can capsulize it in two words: “honest and able.” There were award winning researches, reports, articles, documentaries but later came out fabricated – a lie. I believe that we can trust the product if we can trust the maker. ^-*
