Validity

• What is validity in the context of a study?

  Validity is the extent to which a study produces a result that is legitimate.
• What happens if there are problems with a study's validity?

  If there are problems, the study cannot provide a true explanation of behavior.
• How is validity divided?

  Validity can be divided into internal and external validity.
• What specific definition do examiners want when asking about validity?

  Examiners want 'the extent to which a study measures what it intends to measure.'
• What does internal validity refer to?


  Internal validity refers to whether the effects observed in an experiment are due to the manipulation of the independent variable and not another factor.
• What is a major threat to internal validity?

  A major threat is if participants respond to demand characteristics and act in a way that they think is expected.
• What is mundane realism?

  Mundane realism is a type of validity that refers to how realistic the task is.
• Why might a task lack mundane realism?

  A task might lack mundane realism if it does not reflect everyday activities, such as memorizing random words and counting backwards.
• What does external validity refer to?

  External validity refers to how well you can generalize from research participants to people, places, and times outside of the study.
• What is ecological validity?

  Ecological validity is how well you can generalize a study to different settings or situations.
• What factors are incorporated in ecological validity?

  Ecological validity incorporates participants' awareness of the experimenter, mundane realism of the environment, and mundane realism of the task.
• What is population validity?


  Population validity refers to how well the sample used can be generalized to a population as a whole.
• Why might a study using only students not have good population validity?

  Because it may not be appropriate to generalize the findings to all people.
• What does temporal validity refer to?

  Temporal validity refers to the extent to which the findings and conclusions of a study are valid over time.
• How does external validity relate to internal validity?

  External validity is affected by internal validity; you can't generalize results from a study that lacks internal validity.
• Why can't you generalize results from a study that lacks internal validity?

  Because the results have no meaning for the behavior that they were studying.