Validity and Reliability

1. Construct Validity Evidence is defined as a logical explanation that can account for the interrelationships among a set of variables.

1.1. This is important because this can show results that are expected. An example would be that students who are interested in art would do better on an art assessment exam, than their classmates who have more of an interest in science.

2. Content Validity Evidence is established by inspecting test questions to see whether they correspond to what the user decides should be covered by the test.

2.1. This is important because it is the easiest way to see when the test is in an area such as achievement, where it is fairly easy to specify what should be included in the content of a test.

3. Criterion-Related Validity Evidence

3.1. Concurrent Criterion-Related Validity Evidence is determined by administering both the new test and the established test to a group of respondents, then finding the correlation between the two sets.

3.1.1. This is important because deals with measures that can be administered at the same time as it can be validated.

3.2. Predictive Validity Evidence refers to how well the test predicts some future behavior of the examinees.

3.2.1. This is important for aptitude tests, which attempt to predict how well test takers will do in some future settings.

4. New node

5. Test-Retest or Stability is given twice and the correlation between the first set of scores and the second set of scores is determined.

5.1. This is important because it can show how reliable the test is, as long as the second time it is administered after a short time interval.

6. Alternate Forms or Equivalence are obtained by administering two alternate forms of a test to the same group and correlating their scores.

6.1. This is important because it eliminates the problems of memory and practice involved in test-retest estimates.

7. Internal Consistency estimates of reliability fall into two general categories split-half and item-total correlations. These should be used only when the test measures a single or unitary trait.

7.1. This is important because it makes sure the test is consistent throughout it's entirity.