SGHE5033 ASSESSMENT IN HIGHER

EDUCATION

(Test Validity)

Prof. Dr. Arsaythamby Veloo

School of Education
UUM College of Arts and Sciences
 Reliability
(Accuracy in
measurement)

Goodness
of data
Validity
(Are we measuring
the right thing?)

Logical validity Criterion-related Congruent validity

(content) validity (Construct)

Face validity Predictive Concurrent Convergent Discriminant

Test Validity

 Construct validity

 Content validity / face validity (Internal)

 Criterian-related validity (External)

Construct validity
 Translation validity
* Face validity
* Content validity
 Criterian-related validity
* Predictive validity
* Concurrent validity
* Convergent validity
* Discriminant validity
 Definition
 Validity-Does the test measure what it is
supposed to measure?

 Validity refers to the accuracy of a measure

 It is the extent to which a measuring

instrument actually measures the underlying
concept it is suppose to measure
 Definition (cont)
 It refers to the extent of matching,
congruence, or “goodness of fit” between
an operational definition and the concept
it is purported to measure

 An instrument is said to be valid if it taps

the concept it is suppose to measure. It is
designed to answer the question- is it
true
 Content validity (Face
validity)
 This is the extent to which a measuring
instrument reflects a specific domain of
content

 It can also be viewed as the sampling

adequacy of the content of a
phenomena being measured
Content validity (cont)
 This type of validity is often used in the
assessment of various educational and
psychological tests

 Content validation then, is essentially

judgmental
 Problem With Content
Validity
 Specifying the full domain of content
relevant to a particular measurement
situation

 No agreed upon criterion for determining

content validity
Criterion-Related Validity

 This is at issue when the purpose is to

use an instrument to estimate some
important form of behavior that is
eternal to the measuring instrument
itself, the latter being referred to as the
criterion
Criterion-Related Validity
(cont)

 A test used to select students for

special programs of study in high school
is valid only to the extent that it actually
predicts performance in those programs
Criterion-Related Validity

 Concurrent validity

 Predictive validity
 Concurrent Validity
 Refers to the ability of a measure to
accurately predict the current situation
or status of an individual

 Where the instrument being assessed is

compared to some already existing
criterion, such as the results of another
measuring device
 Predictive Validity
 This is where an instrument is used to
predict some future state of affairs.

 An example here is the various

educational tests used for selection
purposes in different occupations and
schools; the SAT, the GRE, etc.
Predictive Validity (cont)

 If people who score high on the SAT or

GRE do better in college than low-
scorers, then the SAT or GRE test is
presumably a valid measure of
Scholastic aptitude (in the case of SAT)
 Predictive Validity (cont)

 The prison system uses this to assess

criminal who are less likely to recidivist.
They use factors such as age, type of
crime, family background, etc.
 Problems with Criterion-
Related Validity
 From the definition of criterion-related
validity, it can be inferred that the
degree of criterion-relation validity
depends on the extent of the
correspondence between the test and
the criterion
 Problems with Criterion-
Related Validity (cont)
 Most measures in the social sciences
have no well delimited relevant criterion
variables against which measures can
be reasonably evaluated
 Construct Validity

 This is evaluated by examining the

degree to which certain explanatory
concepts (constructs) derived from
theory, account for performance on a
measure
 Construct validity (cont)

 A type of validity which depicts how a

particular measure relates to other
measures consistent with theoretically
derived hypothesis concerning the
concepts or constructs that are being
measured
Construct Validity (cont)
 The process of construct validation is
theory-laden
Type of Construct Validity

 Convergent validity

 Discriminant validity
 Convergent Validity

 This is based on the idea that two

instruments that are valid measures of
the same concept should correlate
rather highly with one another or yield
similar results even though they are
different instruments.
 Discriminant Validity

 This is based on the idea that two

instruments, although similar to one
another, should not correlate highly if
they measure different concepts
 Discriminant Validity
(cont)

 This approach thus involves the

simultaneous assessment of numerous
instruments (multimethod) and
numerous concepts (multitrait) through
the computation of intercorrelations
 Problems with Construct
validity
 The process of validation is theory-
laden. It is thus almost impossible to
‘validate’ a measure of a concept unless
there is in existence a theoretical
network that surrounds it
The Reliability- Validity
Relationship
 An instrument that is valid always
reliable
 An instrument that is not valid may or
may not be reliable
 An instrument that is reliable may or
may not be valid
 The Reliability- Validity
Relationship (cont)
 An instrument that is not reliable is
never valid
 Reliability is a necessary but not
sufficient, condition for good
measurement
THANK YOU