Internal Validity

"Internal validity refers to the degree to which changes in the dependent variable are due solely to the effect of changes in the independent variable"

Since this is a questionnaire and not an experiment, do we even have independent and dependent variables? Is internal validity the right phrase to be using here?

That's what I was thinking. This part: "...this method is quite vulnerable to error and bias, such as the participants' level of social desirability, carelessness, or faulty memory." seems to be more characteristic of response sets, which affect reliability, not validity. Does anyone think it would be okay to have a "scale reliability" section under this page? Or something of the sort.

Hi Mona, remember that if a scale isn't reliable then it also won't be valid. Nevertheless, having a separate section on reliability could be a good idea to make it more specific.

I just read through the Limitations section and I think someone has already touched on what I had in mind on the subject of reliability. Thanks for your feedback!

I haven't looked at the specific part, but perhaps it would go better here than in the limitations section. What do you and others think?

I read through it again and I think that it fits well in the limitation section. It makes sense and flows well with the organization of that page. I will perhaps add something to it, though.

Hi all, overall I think we have good reason to believe we have external validity for our scale. The questions look to be measuring what we want them to (face validity), seem to form a single factor (factorial validity), and don't correlate with most of the Big-5 traits (discriminant validity). While all of the points outlined in this section are true, after reading this section one is left with the view that our scale isn't valid, whereas, as I said, I think we have good reason to believe it is.