There is something about the topic of validity that seems to provoke dissatisfaction in many of those who encounter it--a sense that something is not right, and that something needs to be done to sort it out. Paul E. Newton in his target essay does not attempt a radical reconstruction of the validity edifice. His position is that the "consensus…

Paul E. Newton's article on the consensus definition of validity tackles a number of big issues and makes a number of strong claims. I agreed with much of what he said, and I disagreed with a number of his claims, but I found his article to be consistently interesting and thought provoking (whether I agreed or not). I will focus on three general…

The Physics Metacognition Inventory was developed to measure physics students' metacognition for problem solving. In one of our earlier studies, an exploratory factor analysis provided evidence of preliminary construct validity, revealing six components of students' metacognition when solving physics problems including knowledge of cognition,…

Aim: The objective of this study was to assess the validity of a mobility questionnaire (MobQues) that was developed to measure parent-reported mobility limitations in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Method: The parents of 439 children with CP (256 males and 183 females; age range 2-18y; Gross Motor Function Classification System [GMFCS] levels…

When causal inferences are to be synthesized across multiple studies, efforts to establish the magnitude of a causal effect should be balanced by an effort to evaluate the generalizability of the effect. The evaluation of generalizability depends on two factors that are given little attention in current syntheses: construct validity and external…

Investigated the factor structure of a battery of tasks hypothesized to measure the constructs of the planning, attention, and simultaneous-successive (PASS) process model of human cognition. Results suggest that the original PASS model provides an improper factor solution. Recommends further refinement of the PASS theory or tests. (RJM)