TCA Lectures Explain the concept of validity of a test; also explain different types of validity of test. BEd

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Answer:

Test validity is the extent to which a test (such as a chemical, physical, or scholastic 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" (such as content validity, criterion validity, and construct validity), the currently dominant view is that validity is a single unitary construct.

Validity is generally considered the most important issue in psychological and educational testing because it concerns the meaning placed on test results. Though many textbooks present validity as a static construct, various models of validity have evolved since the first published recommendations for constructing psychological and education tests.[6] These models can be categorized into two primary groups: classical models, which include several types of validity, and modern models, which present validity as a single construct. The modern models reorganize classical "validities" into either "aspects" of validity[3] or "types" of validity-supporting evidence.

Test validity can itself be tested/validated using tests of inter-rater reliability, intra-rater reliability, repeatability (test-retest reliability), and other traits, usually via multiple runs of the test whose results are compared. Statistical analysis helps determine whether the differences between the various results either are large enough to be a problem or are acceptably small.

Different types of validity of test:

External Validity

External validity is about generalization: To what extent can an effect in research, be generalized to populations, settings, treatment variables, and measurement variables?

External validity is usually split into two distinct types, population validity and ecological validity and they are both essential elements in judging the strength of an experimental design.

Internal Validity

Internal validity is a measure which ensures that a researcher's experiment design closely follows the principle of cause and effect.

“Could there be an alternative cause, or causes, that explain my observations and results?”

Test Validity

Test validity is an indicator of how much meaning can be placed upon a set of test results.

Criterion Validity

Criterion Validity assesses whether a test reflects a certain set of abilities.

• Concurrent validity measures the test against a benchmark test and high correlation indicates that the test has strong criterion validity.
• Predictive validity is a measure of how well a test predicts abilities. It involves testing a group of subjects for a certain construct and then comparing them with results obtained at some point in the future.

Content Validity

Content validity is the estimate of how much a measure represents every single element of a

construct.

Construct Validity

Construct validity defines how well a test or experiment measures up to its claims. A test designed to measure depression must only measure that particular construct, not closely related ideals such as anxiety or stress.

• Convergent validity tests that constructs that are expected to be related are, in fact, related.
• Discriminant validity tests that constructs that should have no relationship do, in fact, not have any relationship. (also referred to as divergent validity)

Face Validity

Face validity is a measure of how representative a research project is ‘at face value,' and whether it appears to be a good project.

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