Validity: on the meaningful interpretation of assessment data

CONTEXT: All assessments in medical education require evidence of validity to be interpreted meaningfully. In contemporary usage, all validity is construct validity, which requires multiple sources of evidence; construct validity is the whole of validity, but has multiple facets. Five sources--content, response process, internal structure, relationship to other variables and consequences--are noted by the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing as fruitful areas to seek validity evidence. PURPOSE: The purpose of this article is to discuss construct validity in the context of medical education and to summarize, through example, some typical sources of validity evidence for a written and a…