Which type of validity describes the extent to which a measure relates to other measures designed to measure the same construct?

Which type of validity describes the extent to which a measure relates to other measures designed to measure the same construct?

• A. Convergent validity
• B. Discriminant validity
• C. Criterion validity
• D. Face validity

Answer: (A)

Convergent validity is about showing that a new measure taps the same construct as established measures. When a new anxiety scale yields strong correlations with existing anxiety measures, it indicates you’re measuring what you intend to measure, supporting construct validity through convergence across assessments designed for the same construct. Discriminant validity would be shown if the measure has low correlations with measures of different constructs, indicating it’s not capturing the wrong traits. Criterion validity looks at how well the measure relates to an external criterion (concurrent or predictive), and face validity concerns whether the test appears to measure the intended construct at face value, which is about appearance rather than empirical relatedness.

Convergent validity is about showing that a new measure taps the same construct as established measures. When a new anxiety scale yields strong correlations with existing anxiety measures, it indicates you’re measuring what you intend to measure, supporting construct validity through convergence across assessments designed for the same construct.

Discriminant validity would be shown if the measure has low correlations with measures of different constructs, indicating it’s not capturing the wrong traits. Criterion validity looks at how well the measure relates to an external criterion (concurrent or predictive), and face validity concerns whether the test appears to measure the intended construct at face value, which is about appearance rather than empirical relatedness.