Test validity concerns the test and assessment procedures used in psychological and educational testing, and the extent to which these measure what they purport to measure. “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. 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 or types of validity-supporting evidence
Read more about Test Validity: Historical Background, Validation Process
Famous quotes containing the words test and/or validity:
“There is held to be no surer test of civilisation than the increase per head of the consumption of alcohol and tobacco. Yet alcohol and tobacco are recognisable poisons, so that their consumption has only to be carried far enough to destroy civilisation altogether.”
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939)
“Once one is caught up into the material world not one person in ten thousand finds the time to form literary taste, to examine the validity of philosophic concepts for himself, or to form what, for lack of a better phrase, I might call the wise and tragic sense of life.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)