title: Quantifying construct validity: two simple measures.
abstract: Construct validity is one of the most central concepts in psychology. Researchers generally establish the construct validity of a measure by correlating it with a number of other measures and arguing from the pattern of correlations that the measure is associated with these variables in theoretically predictable ways. This article presents 2 simple metrics for quantifying construct validity that provide effect size estimates indicating the extent to which the observed pattem of correlations in a convergent-discriminant validity matrix matches the theoretically predicted pattern of correlations. Both measures, based on contrast analysis, provide simple estimates of validity that can be compared across studies, constructs, and measures meta-analytically, and can be implemented without the use of complex statistical procedures that may limit their accessibility.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA. dwesten@emory.edu
authors.forename: Drew
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Westen
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rosenthal
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D006677:Histrionic Personality Disorder / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis; D006801:Humans; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013223:Statistics as Topic / Q000379:methods