ERIC Number: EJ993534
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012
Pages: 4
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1536-6367
EISSN: N/A
Whose Consensus Is It Anyway? Scientific versus Legalistic Conceptions of Validity
Borsboom, Denny
Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and Perspectives, v10 n1-2 p38-41 2012
Paul E. Newton provides an insightful and scholarly overview of central issues in validity theory. As he notes, many of the conceptual problems in validity theory derive from the fact that the word "validity" has two meanings. First, it indicates "whether a test measures what it purports to measure." This is a factual claim about the psychometric properties of a proposed measurement instrument. Many people--including psychometricians and test theorists, as Newton documents--still think that this is the accepted definition in validity theory, which is not the case. In the current consensus definition, the term "validity" indicates "to what extent an interpretation of a test score is justifiable" (or a variation on that theme). This is not a factual but an evaluative claim about a given interpretation of the test score, which need not involve measurement at all. As Newton notes, however, validity is so intertwined with measurement that many validity theorists have difficulty maintaining their own position consistently, and often unwittingly slip back into the traditional definition of validity. Newton attempts to resolve this tension by bringing the reference to measurement back into the definition of validity, while maintaining the idea that validity is grounded in test score interpretations. He does so by requiring that the argument for a particular kind of test interpretation be sufficiently strong; namely, measurement interpretations that are "entailed" by the decisions based on the test score.
Descriptors: Validity, Psychometrics, Test Interpretation, Scores, Measurement, Tests, Definitions, Testing
Psychology Press. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Opinion Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A

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