title: Defining and distinguishing validity: interpretations of score meaning and justifications of test use.
abstract: The concept of validity has suffered because the term has been used to refer to 2 incompatible concerns: the degree of support for specified interpretations of test scores (i.e., intended score meaning) and the degree of support for specified applications (i.e., intended test uses). This article has 3 purposes: (a) to provide a brief summary of current validity theory, (b) to illustrate the incompatibility of incorporating score meaning and score use into a single concept, and (c) to propose and describe a framework that both accommodates and differentiates validation of test score inferences and justification of test use.
authors.affiliation: School of Education, Program in Educational Psychology, Measurement, and Evaluation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3500, USA. cizek@unc.edu
authors.forename: Gregory J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Cizek
mesh_terms: D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011581:Psychological Tests / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011582:Psychological Theory; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012107:Research Design / Q000592:standards*; D009626:Terminology as Topic