WHAT IS TEST VALIDITY?

Mr. Juanito J. Valles, Sr.

Instructor
VALENZUELA CITY POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE
TEST VALIDITY

A measure is valid when it measures what is supposed to

measure. If a quarterly exam is valid, then the contents
should directly measure the objectives of the curriculum.
If a scale that measures personality is composed of five
factors, then the scores on the five factors should have items
that are highly correlated.
If an entrance exam is valid, it should predict students’
grades after the first semester.
WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT WAYS TO
ESTABLISH TEST VALIDITY?
 TYPE OF VALIDITY DEFINITION
Content Validity When the items represent the
domain being measured
Face Validity When the test is presented well,
free of errors, and administered
well
Predictive Validity A measure should predict a future
criterion. Example is an entrance
exam predicting the grades of the
students after the first semester.
Construct Validity The components or factors of the
test should contain items that are
strongly correlated.
PROCEDURE
The items are compared with the
objectives of the program. The
items need to measure directly the
objectives (for achievement) or
definition (for scales). A reviewer
conducts the checking.
The test items and layout are
reviewed and tried out on a small
group of respondents. A manual
for administration can be made as
a guide for the test administrator.
A correlation coefficient is
obtained where the x-variable is
used as the predictor and the y-
variable as the criterion.
The Pearson r can be used to
correlate the items for each factor.
However, there is a technique
called factor analysis to determine
which items are highly correlated
to form a factor.
 TYPE OF VALIDITY DEFINITION PROCEDURE
Concurrent Validity When two or more measures are . The scores on the measures
present for each examinee that should be correlated.
measure the same characteristic.
Convergent Validity When the components or factors Correlation is done for the factors
of a test are hypothesized to have of the test.
a positive correlation.
Divergent Validity When the components or factors Correlation is done for the factors
of a test are hypothesized to have of the test.
a negative correlation. An example
to correlate are the scores in a test
on intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation.
How to Determine if an item is easy or difficult?
1. Get the total score of each student and arrange scores from highest to lowest.
2. Obtain the upper and lower 27% of the group. Multiply 0.27 by the total number of
students, and you will get a value of 2.7 ( In the example there are 10 students). The
rounded whole value is 3.0. Get the top three students and the bottom 3 students based
on their total scores. The rest of the students are not included in the item analysis.
3. Obtain the proportion correct for each item. This is computed for the upper 27% group
and the lower 27% group. This is done by summating the correct answer per item and
dividing it by the total number of students.
4. The item difficulty is obtained using the following formula: PH –proportion of Higher group
!"#!$
Item difficulty = PL – proportion of lower group
%
The difficulty is interpreted using the table:
Difficulty Index Remark
0.76 of higher Easy item
0.25 to 0.75 Average item
0.24 or lower Difficult item
5. The index of discrimination is obtained using the formula:
Item discrimination = pH – pL
The value is interpreted using the table:

Index Discrimination Remark

0.40 and above Very good item
0.30 – 0.39 Good item
0.20 – 0. 29 Reasonably good item
0.10 – 0.19 Marginal item
Below 0.10 Poor item
EXAMPLE : Scores of 10 students from a
five item test.