Validity in Research Design

 

Validity in Research Design

         What is the importance of determining the validity of a design used in research? Conclusions drawn from analyzing the date are only acceptable to the degree to which they are determined valid.  Validity is used to determine whether research measures what it intended to measure and to approximate the truthfulness of the results. Researchers often use their own definition when it comes to what is considered valid.  Validity isn’t determined by a single statistic.

There are different types of validity as follows:

       (1)  Content validity:

         The items on the test represent the entire range of possible items the test should cover.  This is considered as a subjectivemeasurement because it still relies on people’s perception for measuring constructs that would otherwise be difficult to measure. 

        (2)  Face Validity

        According to Fink (1995), it is concerned with how a measure or procedure appears. Does it seem like a reasonable way to gain the information the researchers are attempting to obtain? Does it seem well designed? Does it seem as though it will work reliably?

        (3)  Construct Validity

        Another type of validity is construct validity. Construct represents a collection of behaviors that are associated to create an image or an idea invented for a research purpose. Construct validity is the degree to which inferences can be made from connecting concepts to observations in a study.

        (4)   Predictive Validity

         It is a one of the types of criterion-related validity. It is the ability to predict what it is theoretically able to predict.  The extent to which a measure predicts expected outcomes. The other type of criterion-related validity is concurrent validity.

         In some other materials that I’ve read the other types of validity are: internal validity, statistical conclusion validity, and external validity.