Validity: Construct

Introduction

Construct validity is recognized as the fundamental and all-inclusive validity concept insofar as it specifies what categories, traits or factors a test measures (Anastasi & Urbina, 1997; Cronbach, 1988; Messick, 1989). Professional standards addressing validity were first codified in the 1954 Technical Recommendations for Psychological Tests and Diagnostic Techniques (American Psychological Association, 1954). At that time, four separate and distinct types of validity were specified: construct, content, predictive, and concurrent. The former two types of validity were subsumed within criterion-related validity and the resulting three types of validity were referred to as the holy trinity (Guion, 1980). Each type of validity was largely associated with a specific use of tests as separate and exclusive methods of validation became entrenched by different camps of test developers ...