Yes, I was a big fan of the A-Team. Who wasn’t? Mr. T (I guess that makes me Prof. T…) was always entertaining to watch. Lieutenant Templeton Arthur Peck was suave, smooth-talking, and hugely successful with women. Peck served as the team’s con man and scrounger, able to get his hands on just about anything they needed. Need a refresher? Have a peek here.
Well in a past post 2 Legit 2 Quit we talked about why we assess validity – because we want to know the nature of what is being measured and the relationship of that measure to its scientific aim or purpose. So what if we are uncertain that our measure (a scale for example) looks reasonable? We would consider face validity and content validity. Essentially, face validity assess whether or not the instrument we are using to measure appears to be assessing the desired qualities or attributes based on “the face of it”. Content validity – that was touched on in the previous post – is closely related and considers whether the instrument samples all of the relevant or important content or interest.
So, why the importance of face validity? Whenever you need to interact successfully with study participants there is often a need to:
– increase motivation and cooperation from participants for better responses.
– attract as many potential candidates.
– reduce dissatisfaction among users.
– make your results more generalizable and appealing to stake holders.
These are especially important points to consider when planning a study that involves human subjects as respondents or there exists any level of subjectivity in how data is collected for the variables of interest in your study.
However, you want to avoid a “Con Man” situation in your study where respondents’ answers are not what they appear to be. As a researcher you need to be aware that there may be situations where Face Validity may not be achievable. Let’s say for instance you are interested in discovering all factors related to bullying in high school. If you were to ask the question ‘ have you ever bullied a classmate into given you his/her lunch money?’ you may have Face Validity but you may not get an honest response! In this case, you may consider a question that does not have face validity but will elicit the wanted answer. Ultimately, the decision on whether or not to have face validity – where the meaning and relevance are self-evident – depends on the nature and purpose of the instrument. Prepare to be flexible in your methodology!
Remember that face validity pertains to how your study participants perceive your test. They should be the yard stick by which you assess whether you have face validity or not.
Listen to Ed Sheeran – The A Team to decompress and…
… I’ll see you in the blogosphere.
Pascal Tyrrell
Website of Prof. Pascal Tyrrell
