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A Defense and Definition of Construct Validity in Psychology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Caroline Stone
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Abstract

Psychologists say a measure has construct validity when it, in fact, measures the construct it is intended to measure. Construct validity is both an important notion in psychological research methods and the source of much confusion and debate among psychologists. I argue that this confusion arises, in part, because of a failure to distinguish between construct validity, a feature of measures relative to a construct, and construct legitimacy, a feature of the construct itself. I propose a prescriptive account of construct validity on the basis of this distinction, then provide evidence for my account through two examples from research psychology.

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Type
Cognitive Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 86 , Issue 5 , December 2019 , pp. 1250 - 1261
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

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To contact the author, please write to: Washington University in St. Louis, 1 Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130; e-mail: carolinestone@wustl.edu.

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