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Addressing Threats to Construct Validity in Research Studies

Learn about common threats to construct validity, including mono-operation bias, hypothesis guessing, and restricted generalizability. Understand how these issues impact research outcomes and how to mitigate them effectively.

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Addressing Threats to Construct Validity in Research Studies

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  1. Threats to Construct Validity

  2. Inadequate Pre-Operational Explication of Constructs • Preoperational = before translating constructs into measures or treatments • In other words, you didn't do a good enough job of defining (operationally) what you mean by the construct

  3. Mono-Operation Bias • Pertains to the treatment or program • Used only one version of the treatment or program

  4. Mono-Method Bias • Pertains especially to the measures or outcomes • Only operationalized measures in one way • For instance, only used paper-and-pencil tests

  5. Hypothesis Guessing • People guess the hypothesis and respond to it rather than respond "naturally“. • People want to look good or look smart. • This is a construct validity issue because the "cause" will be mislabeled. You'll attribute effect to treatment rather than to good guessing.

  6. Evaluation Apprehension • People make themselves look good because they know they're in a study. • Perhaps their apprehension makes them consistently respond poorly -- you mislabel this as a negative treatment effect.

  7. Experimenter Expectancies • The experimenter can bias results consciously or unconsciously. • Bias becomes confused (mixed up with) the treatment; you mislabel the results as a treatment effect.

  8. Confounding Constructs and Levels of Constructs • Conclude that the treatment has no effect when it is only that level of the treatment which has none • Really a dosage issue -- related to mono-operation because you only looked at one or two levels.

  9. Interaction of Different Treatments • People get more than one treatment . • This happens all the time in social ameliorative studies. • Again, the construct validity issue is largely a labeling issue.

  10. Interaction of Testing and Treatment • Does the testing itself make the groups more sensitive or receptive to the treatment? • This is a labeling issue. • It differs from testing threat to internal validity; here, the testing interacts with the treatment to make it more effective; there, it is not a treatment effect at all (but rather an alternative cause).

  11. Restricted Generalizability Across Constructs • You didn't measure your outcomes completely. • You didn't measure some key affected constructs at all (for example, unintended effects).

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