Dr. Valencia is considering conducting a study examining whether narcissistic people have poorer social interactions than those
who are not narcissistic. One of her first tasks is to determine which of her participants are narcissistic and which are not. She decides to use the scale created by a colleague, the Mayo scale. Question 1 reads, "I tend not to think about other people as much as I think about myself." Question 2 reads, "I do not have a high opinion of myself." Question 3 reads, "I think other people think I am really special." Dr. Valencia is concerned whether her measure will really measure narcissism or if it will measure some other related concept.
She is concerned about the scale’s ________.
In research, the term validity refers to the fact that you are actually measuring what you are claiming to be measuring. In other words, your study is valid if it measures what you want to actually measure.
In this example, Dr. Valencia is conducting a study examining whether narcissistic people have poorer social interactions. However, she is concerned whether her scale will really measure narcissism or if it will measure some other concept. In other words, <u>she is worried that her scale is actually measuring what it claims to be measuring. </u>Thus, she is concerned about the scale's validity.
