Face validity

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Face validity is the extent to which a test is subjectively viewed as covering the concept it purports to measure. It refers to the transparency or relevance of a test as it appears to test participants. [1] [2] In other words, a test can be said to have face validity if it "looks like" it is going to measure what it is supposed to measure. [3] For instance, if a test is prepared to measure whether students can perform multiplication, and the people to whom it is shown all agree that it looks like a good test of multiplication ability, this demonstrates face validity of the test. Face validity is often contrasted with content validity and construct validity.

Contents

Some people use the term face validity to refer only to the validity of a test to observers who are not expert in testing methodologies. For instance, if a test is designed to measure whether children are good spellers, and parents are asked whether the test is a good test, this measures the face validity of the test. If an expert is asked instead, some people would argue that this does not measure face validity. [4] This distinction seems too careful for most applications.[ citation needed ] Generally, face validity means that the test "looks like" it will work, as opposed to "has been shown to work".

Simulation

In simulation, the first goal of the system designer is to construct a system which can support a task to be accomplished, and to record the learner's task performance for any particular trial. The task(s)—and therefore, the task performance—on the simulator should be representative of the real world that they model. Face validity is a subjective measure of the extent to which this selection appears reasonable on the face of it—that is, subjectively to an expert after only a superficial examination of the content. Some assume that it is representative of the realism of the system, according to users and others who are knowledgeable about the real system being simulated. [5] Those would say that if these experts feel the model is adequate, then it has face validity. However, in fact face validity refers to the test, not the system.

See also

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rorschach test</span> Projective psychological test created in 1921

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Validity or Valid may refer to:

Test validity is the extent to which a test accurately measures what it is supposed to measure. In the fields of psychological testing and educational testing, "validity refers to the degree to which evidence and theory support the interpretations of test scores entailed by proposed uses of tests". Although classical models divided the concept into various "validities", the currently dominant view is that validity is a single unitary construct.

Dynamic decision-making (DDM) is interdependent decision-making that takes place in an environment that changes over time either due to the previous actions of the decision maker or due to events that are outside of the control of the decision maker. In this sense, dynamic decisions, unlike simple and conventional one-time decisions, are typically more complex and occur in real-time and involve observing the extent to which people are able to use their experience to control a particular complex system, including the types of experience that lead to better decisions over time.

In statistics, model validation is the task of evaluating whether a chosen statistical model is appropriate or not. Oftentimes in statistical inference, inferences from models that appear to fit their data may be flukes, resulting in a misunderstanding by researchers of the actual relevance of their model. To combat this, model validation is used to test whether a statistical model can hold up to permutations in the data. This topic is not to be confused with the closely related task of model selection, the process of discriminating between multiple candidate models: model validation does not concern so much the conceptual design of models as it tests only the consistency between a chosen model and its stated outputs.

References

  1. Holden, Ronald B. (2010). "Face validity". In Weiner, Irving B.; Craighead, W. Edward (eds.). The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology (4th ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley. pp. 637–638. ISBN   978-0-470-17024-3.
  2. Gravetter, Frederick J.; Forzano, Lori-Ann B. (2012). Research Methods for the Behavioral Sciences (4th ed.). Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth. p. 78. ISBN   978-1-111-34225-8.
  3. University of Salford: School of Community, Health Sciences and Social Care Archived 2007-06-25 at the Wayback Machine
  4. Anastasi, A. (1988). Psychological testing. New York: Macmillan, p. 144
  5. Banks, J. (2005). Discrete-Event System Simulation. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall