**Face Validity

**Objectives:
(a) explain what face validity is
(b) present examples of face validity
(c) discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using face validity in dissertations.

**What is face validity?

**Face validity, also called logical validity, is a simple form of validity where you apply a superficial and
subjective assessment of whether or not your study or test measures what it is supposed to measure. 

You can think of it as being similar to “face value”, where you just skim the surface in order to form an
opinion. It is the easiest form of validity to apply to research. However, it doesn’t general include much (if any
at all) in the way of objective measurements. Therefore, it is often criticized as the weakest form of validity

**For example, IQ tests are supposed to measure intelligence. The test would be valid if it accurately
measured intelligence.

Very early IQ tests would often have pictures of missing items, like a missing tennis ball from a court, or a
missing chimney from a house. At face value, the test was thought to be valid and fair to speakers of
languages other than English, because pictures are a universal language. However, the test was actually
biased against the poor, who may not have ever seen a tennis court.

**For example, we may choose to use questionnaire items, interview questions, and so forth. These
questionnaire items or interview questions are part of the measurement procedure. This measurement
procedure should provide an accurate representation of the variable (or construct) it is measuring if it is to be
considered valid. For example, if we want to measure intelligence, we need to have a measurement
procedure that accurately measures a person's intelligence. Since there are many ways of thinking about
intelligence (e.g., IQ, emotional intelligence, etc.), this can make it difficult to come up with a measurement
procedure that has strong validity.

**Face validity is only considered to be a superficial measure of validity, unlike construct validity and content

validity because is not really about what the measurement procedure actually measures, but what
it appears to measure. This appearance is only superficial. One of the main reasons that researchers are
interested in face validity is a belief that a measure should appear to measure what it measures.

(b) examples of Face validity

A university professor creates a new test to measure applicants’ English writing ability. To assess how well
the test really does measure students’ writing ability, she finds an existing test that is considered a valid
measurement of English writing ability, and compares the results when the same group of students take both
tests. If the outcomes are very similar, the new test has a high criterion validity.

**c.) In discussing the advantages and disadvantages of face validity, we distinguish between those scenarios
where (a) face validity is the main form of validity that you have used in your research, and where (b) face
validity is used as a supplemental form of validity, supporting other types of validity 
**Advantage of Face Validity:

**If face validity is your main form of validity

**One of the practical reasons for using face validity as the main form of validity for your measurement
procedure is that it is quick and easy to apply. Rather than having to investigate the underlying factors that
determine whether a measure is robust, as you have to do when applying content validity or construct
validity, it is easy and quick to come up with measures that are face valid.

Often, you simply need to think what measures (e.g., questions in a questionnaire) would make sense to you
if you were taking part in the research (i.e., if you were being asked the question).

**If face validity is used as a supplemental form of validity

**Unless there is a specific reason why you do not want a measure to appear to measure what it measures
because this could affect the responses you get from participants in a negative way (e.g., the racial prejudice
example above), it is a good thing that a measure has face validity.
It can encourage people to respond (e.g. to a survey) because they imagine that the measurement
procedure is measuring something it should be.
Lack of such face validity can discourage people from taking part in a survey; or if they do take part, they may
be more likely to drop out.

Furthermore, if participants expect to benefit from the results in some way, perhaps because the results
could bring about some type of change that is beneficial to them (e.g., a reduction of racial prejudice, an
improvement in training techniques in the classroom, etc.), they are less likely to support a measurement
procedure that they feel would not lead to a more predictable result.

**Disadvantage of Face Validity:

**If face validity is your main form of validity

**When used as the main form of validity for assessing a measurement procedure, face validity is
the weakest form of validity. In fact, face validity is not real validity. Therefore, strong face validity does not
equate to strong validity in general.

After all, face validity is subjective (i.e., based on the subjective judgement of the researcher), and only
provides the appearance of that a measurement procedure is valid. It cannot be quantified. In other words,
you can't tell how well the measurement procedure measures what it is trying to measure, which is possible
with other forms of validity (e.g., construct validity).

Sometimes you do not want research participants to understand/guess the purpose of a measurement
procedure because this can affect the responses that they give in a negative way.

**If face validity is used as a supplemental form of validity

**Even when face validity is being used as a supplemental form of validity, it can still be undesirable when
you do not want research participants to understand/guess the purpose of the measurement procedure, as
discussed in the previous section.

**Content Validity

**Content validity refers to the actual content within a test. A test that is valid in content should adequately
examine all aspects that define the objective.
**Content validity, sometimes called logical or rational validity, is the estimate of how much a measure
represents every single element of a construct.

For example, an educational test with strong content validity will represent the subjects actually taught to
students, rather than asking unrelated questions.

**How is Content Validity Measured?

**Content validity is related to face validity, but differs wildly in how it is evaluated.

**Face validity requires a personal judgment, such as asking participants whether they thought that a test
was well constructed and useful. Content validity arrives at the same answers, but uses an approach based
in statistics, ensuring that it is regarded as a strong type of validity.

**For surveys and tests, each question is given to a panel of expert analysts, and they rate it. They give their
opinion about whether the question is essential, useful or irrelevant to measuring the construct under study.

Their results are statistically analyzed and the test modified to improve the rational validity.

**Example of Low Content Validity

**A school wants to hire a new science teacher, and a panel of governors begins to look through the various
candidates. They draw up a shortlist and then set a test, picking the candidate with the best score. Sadly, he
proves to be an extremely poor science teacher.

**After looking at the test, the education board begins to see where they went wrong. The vast majority of
the questions were about physics so, of course, the school found the most talented physics teacher.
However, this particular job expected the science teacher to teach biology, chemistry and psychology.

**The content validity of test was poor and did not fully represent the construct of 'being a good science
teacher.'

**Suitably embarrassed, the school redesigned the test and submitted it to a panel of educational experts.
After asking the candidates to sit the revised test, the school found another teacher, and she proved to be an
excellent and well-rounded science teacher. This test had a much higher rational validity and fully
represented every element of the construct.

Reference:

http://dissertation.laerd.com/face-validity.php
http://dissertation.laerd.com/content-validity.php
https://www.statisticshowto.com/face-validity/
https://www.statisticshowto.com/content-validity

JOHANN EMMANUEL L. MOLATO ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT LEARNING

DTS 1-A MR. MARJUNE NEPAYA