Validity, Face and Content

Validity refers to a condition in which statements or conclusions made about reality are reflective of that reality. A number of forms of validity exist in social science research. One form is generalizability, which represents the extent to which a statement or conclusion applies to populations or settings not included within the context of a specific study. Causal validity is concerned with statements or conclusions drawn about hypothesized effects of variables on outcomes under study. Measurement validity relates to the degree to which measures designed to capture concepts do in fact measure desired concepts. In other words, how accurately a measure in a study assesses what researchers believe the measure captures is reflective of the amount of measurement validity present within the study design. Thus, ...