Validity (Page 84)

Validity (Page 84)

1. Control

   • Control is vital in experiments - an experimenter seeks to control as many extraneous variables as possible, i.e those extra to the IV

2. Realism

   • The aim of any psychological study is to provide info about how people behave in the 'real world' - if the set-up of a study is too artificial or contrived the participants won't act normally
   • Many things affect the realism in a study
     • Mundane realism - refers to how an experiment mirrors the real world

3. Generalisability

   • The point of realism in a study/research - so findings can be generalised, especially in the 'real world'
   • A study may be very 'natural' or real but can still lack generalisability - just because a study is conducted in a natural environment doesn't mean the findings can be generalised to the real world

4. Internal + External validity

   • Validity can be separated into internal + external
   • Internal - what goes on inside a study - e.g:
     • Whether the study possessed (or lacked) mundane realism
     • Whether the IV produced the change in the DV (or was it something else?)
   • External - affected by internal, concerns the ability to generalise the results of a study to:
     • Different places or settings - ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY
     • Different people or places - POPULATION VALIDITY
     • Different times (e.g. the 1980s or 2010s) - HISTORICAL VALIDITY