Content Validity

Authors
Affiliations

Doctor of Physical Therapy

B.S. in Kinesiology

Doctor of Physical Therapy

B.A. in Neuroscience

Content validity is one of the 3 main types of validity and refers to “the degree to which the content of an instrument adequately reflects the construct being measured”1. Content validity represents an early and purely qualitative to enhance construct validity of an instrument based on subjective judgments by an examiner1.

Caution

Claims about the validity of an instrument should never be based exclusively on evidence of adequate content validity1

Relevance

Relevant Situations

According to Polit, content validity is relevant in studies which involved developing a new instrument1.

Irrelevant Situations

Oppositely, Polit stated that content validity was not necessary with existing instruments. Such as texting an existing instrument in a new population, adapting or revising an existing instrument, or translating an existing instrument1. It should be noted that this was an example, and should not be applied universally.

References

1.
Polit DF. Assessing measurement in health: Beyond reliability and validity. International Journal of Nursing Studies. 2015;52(11):1746-1753. doi:10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2015.07.002

Citation

For attribution, please cite this work as: