Question 6: ‘To examine the validity of the scale, factor scores of lay persons (middle-aged workers) were compared with those of 39 clinical therapists who specialize in psychosomatic medicine.’ What aspects of validity are being investigated using this method?
There are two possible categories of validity which this fits into: construct validity and discriminant validity.
This can be regarded as testing construct validity, because we are asking whether the scale is related to something to which we expect the concept we are trying measure to be related, i.e. we expect that the health professionals would have a more positive listening attitude and greater listening skill than would workers in industry.
This can be regarded as testing discriminant validity, in the sense that we are asking whether the measure is able to discriminate between different groups of subjects, i.e. trained health professionals and industrial workers.
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Last updated: 5 March, 2007.