Certified Rehabilitation Counselor Practice

Which type of validity represents the extent to which a measure accurately assesses the theoretical construct it claims to evaluate?

1. Criterion validity

2. Construct validity

3. Content validity

4. Face validity

The correct answer is: Construct validity

Construct validity represents the extent to which a measure accurately assesses the theoretical construct it claims to evaluate. This form of validity is crucial because it determines whether the measurement truly reflects the idea or concept that it intends to measure. For example, if a counseling assessment is designed to measure anxiety, construct validity would assess whether the test actually captures the characteristics and behaviors associated with anxiety, rather than something unrelated. This evaluation typically involves both convergent validity, where the measure correlates well with established measures of the same construct, and discriminant validity, where it does not correlate with measures of different constructs. While criterion validity assesses how well one measure predicts an outcome based on another measure, content validity focuses on how well the items on a test represent the entire construct being measured. Face validity, on the other hand, refers to whether a test seems, at face value, to measure what it claims to measure. Construct validity goes deeper by addressing the underlying theoretical frameworks and evidence connecting the measure to those constructs.