types of validity

• validity


  the extent to which an observed effect is genuine- does it measure what it was supposed to measure, and can it be generalised beyond the research setting within which it was found
• face validity 


  a basic form of validity in which a measure is scrutinised to determine whether it appears to measure what it is supposed to measure- for instance, does a test of anxiety look like it measures anxiety
• internal validity 


  refers to whether the effects observed in an experiment are due to the manipulation of the independent variable
• major threat to the internal validity of a study- if pps respond to demand characteristics
• external validity 


  relates more to factors outside of the investigation e.g., generalising to other settings
• ecological validity 


  concerns generalising findings from one setting to other settings

  more particular to 'everyday life'
• temporal validity 


  is the issue of whether findings from a particular study, or concept, within a particular theory, hold true over time
• concurrent validity


  the extent to which a psychological measure relates to an existing similar measure