In the category of Assessment and Testing on the National Counselor Examination (NCE), the Counselor Preparation Comprehensive Examination (CPCE), or another counseling exam, understanding validity will be important to say the least.
Validity is often considered the most important aspect of assessments. In this video, we’ll discuss that, plus different types of validity! You’ll learn more about content validity, construct validity, concurrent validity, predictive validity, and consequential validity. As a bonus, we’ll also briefly discuss criterion validity!
What is validity? Validity is the ability for an assessment to measure what it is trying to measure. For example, a valid counseling methods assessment would measure the counselor’s ability to understand or recognize various counseling skills. Or, a valid IQ assessment would be able to measure one’s IQ.
What is the importance of validity? Experts consider validity to be the most important part of a test. This makes sense because if we think about validity being the ability for an assessment to measure what it’s trying to measure, this is important. If it can’t measure what it’s trying to, there hardly seems to be a purpose for the assessment.
What is content validity? Content validity might also be referred to as rational or logical validity. With content validity, this refers to a test’s ability to measure the full range of what it’s trying to measure. For example, an IQ assessment with content validity means that the IQ test measures all the pieces that make up IQ. So an IQ test that measures memory, vocabulary, reasoning, math, etc. would have higher content validity than an IQ test that only measures math and vocabulary.
What is construct validity? Some tests need to measure theoretical constructs. Construct validity refers to the test’s ability to measure these ideas. Examples might be IQ, self-esteem, or leadership potential. These areas are more abstract than something like spelling ability. Construct validity is therefore related to an assessment’s ability to measure something that is not directly observable.
What is concurrent validity? With concurrent validity, this refers to how the assessment compares to others that are trying to measure the same concept or topic. If we create a new IQ test but its results are very different from existing tests that are proven valid, there would be low concurrent validity for the new assessment.
What is predictive validity? This is sometimes referred to as empirical validity. Predictive validity refers to an assessment’s ability to measure future behavior.
What is criterion validity? Criterion validity is a combination of two previously discussed types of validity. When concurrent validity and predictive validity are lumped together, this is then “criterion validity”.
What is consequential validity? Less common, consequential validity considers or tries to gather the social implications of an assessment. An example of consequential validity for standardized tests includes positive and negative points. The positives include motivating students and better outcomes related to learning. However, negatives include that students are taught how to take tests rather than focus on the content. Additionally, that results could result in funding being allocated in wrong or negative ways.
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You’ve probably heard of the term validity in terms of assessment and testing. This is an important idea or concept to have it a good idea of when you go into your NC, CPC or whatever counseling exam you’re going to be taking. This video is going to briefly cover what validity is, as well as some different forms of validity that there are. So make sure that you stay tuned for the whole video so that you don’t miss anything. My name is Keegan. I recently completed my master’s degree in counseling. I’m making this video along with the other videos on my channel help you prepare for the NCE.
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or whatever counseling exam it is that you might be taking. These exams can be a lot to prepare for. And it can be helpful to have different forms of the content, whether it be reading it. Listening to it. Watching it in a video to help you understand it and help it stick in your mind in different ways, especially with something like validity that is most likely going to be on your exam in some way, shape or form. That’s one that you’re probably really going to want to have a good idea of.
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as a quick refresher into what validity is, validity is whether a test is actually measuring what it’s supposed to be measuring. So if you have an IQ test that measures eyesight, since those two things are pretty different, that test is probably not valid at all. However, if you have an IQ test that actually shows what level of IQ someone may have that would then be most likely a very valid IQ assessment. Remember that experts consider validity to be one of the most important, if not the most important part of an assessment. Which makes complete sense because if a test is not measuring what it’s supposed to, then what’s the purpose of that test anyway? Right.
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And also, remember that a valid test is always reliable. So if you don’t know what reliability is, make sure that you check out my channel, because there are other videos on here that do explain what reliability is. So we talked about what validity is as a general concept that it’s actually measuring what it’s supposed to measure. However, there are actually five other types of validity that we can talk about or more specific ways that we can talk about. Validity might be a better way of saying that.
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The first is content validity, which is sometimes called logical or rational validity. So you may see those terms for this instead. When we talk about content validity, we’re talking about whether the assessment measures the full range of what it’s trying to measure. IQ assessments are a good example of this because an IQ assessment only measures somebody’s vocabulary or only measures their mathematical ability. That would then be an assessment of IQ that doesn’t really have good content validity.
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However, if the IQ assessment measures reasoning, vocabulary, mathematics, science and all of these different pieces, then we’re going to be having an IQ assessment that has much better content validity. Second, some assessments need to measure more theoretical concepts that we talk about in the field of psychology or counseling. And in this case, we’re going to be looking for assessments that have good construct validity, examples of construct validity, maybe things like IQ, where there’s many different pieces, not just one thing that makes up IQ or self-esteem or leadership potential.
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These are all more theoretical constructs because they’re not easy to define. There’s many different parts of things like IQ or self-esteem, rather than just one thing alone that needs to be measured. When you think of construct validity, remember that that assessment is most likely measuring something that’s not easily observable. it’s more abstract and has many of those different pieces like we talked about. The third form of validity would be concurrent validity. With concurrent validity,
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this is taking an assessment and comparing it to other similar assessments in that same area. So if we have a new IQ test that we just developed and we’re comparing it to a well-established IQ assessment that’s been shown to be valid and reliable, and we look at our scores and they’re very different than the old IQ test scores. That would mean that our IQ test probably does not have very high concurrent validity. The concurrent validity of our new assessment, since it’s scoring differently than the old IQ test,
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is probably pretty low. Therefore, we want to look at our new assessment of IQ because it’s maybe not measuring IQ in the sense that we want it to in the way that we think it is. Fourth, we have predictive validity, which is sometimes called empirical validity. The name of predictive validity kind of gives it away. But just in case it’s referring to an assessments ability to measure future behavior. As a little bonus, you might actually see concurrent validity and predictive validity lumped together into a term called criterion validity.
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We’re about to get into our last form of validity. If you’ve enjoyed this video so far, please help me out by giving it a like or subscribing to the channel. Finally, we have consequential validity. Now this is a form of validity that is less common or not is often talked about. What concurrent validity is doing is is trying to consider or measure the social implications of an assessment. For an example of consequential validity, if we think about standardized tests, what we would do is try to look at the pros and the cons of that standardized assessment. When we think about the positive sides of standardized tests,
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they may be a way of motivating students or maybe a way of guaranteeing or encouraging specific content to be covered in classes. However, on the negative side of standardized assessments, students may end up being taught how to take tests rather than really focusing on the material or the content that the class is hoping to cover. Additionally standardized tests can influence how funding is distributed. And as a result, the funding may not be distributed in the best ways.
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So when we consider those positive and negative sides of standardized tests, that’s what consequential validity is trying to do, is trying to look at the social implications of what that test is doing and how the pros and the cons can affect the outcome. I hope you found this video on validity helpful. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments. Thank you so much for watching.
