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External validity is the validity of applying the conclusions of a scientific study outside the context of that study. [1] In other words, it is the extent to which the results of a study can generalize or transport to other situations, people, stimuli, and times.
Ecological validity, the ability to generalize study findings to the real world, is a subcategory of external validity. [ 6 ] Another example highlighting the differences between these terms is from an experiment that studied pointing [ 7 ] —a trait originally attributed uniquely to humans—in captive chimpanzees.
External validity is the extent to which the results obtained from a study sample can be generalized "to" some well-specified population of interest, and "across" subpopulations of people, times, contexts, and methods of study. [13]
Naturalistic observation can also be used to verify external validity, permitting researchers to examine whether study findings generalize to real world scenarios. Naturalistic observation may also be conducted in lieu of structured experiments when implementing an experiment that would be too costly.
In psychometrics, criterion validity, or criterion-related validity, is the extent to which an operationalization of a construct, such as a test, relates to, or predicts, a theoretically related behaviour or outcome — the criterion.
Validity [5] of an assessment is the degree to which it measures what it is supposed to measure. This is not the same as reliability, which is the extent to which a measurement gives results that are very consistent. Within validity, the measurement does not always have to be similar, as it does in reliability.
Reliability does not imply validity. That is, a reliable measure that is measuring something consistently is not necessarily measuring what is supposed to be measured. For example, while there are many reliable tests of specific abilities, not all of them would be valid for predicting, say, job performance.
Validity has two distinct fields of application in psychology. The first is test validity (or Construct validity), the degree to which a test measures what it was designed to measure. The second is experimental validity (or External validity), the degree to which a study supports the intended conclusion drawn from the results.