Paul Newton and Stuart Shaw (eds): Validity in Educational and Psychological Assessment

Abstract

A strong case can be made that the concept of validity is, or should be, at the heart of theory and practice in educational and psychological assessment. Yet, unlike the more constrained and fundamentally technical concept of reliability, consensus on an enduring definition of validity has eluded theorists since the term was coined more than a century ago. Indeed, whether validity is best described as a single, albeit multifaceted, concept or as a number of distinct, albeit related, concepts, is an issue about which predominant opinion has shifted back and forth over the decades. In their book, Paul Newton and Stuart Shaw take on the Herculean task of marshalling literature on validity theory spanning well over a century, and distilling it into a historical and theoretical analysis. They restrict themselves to an investigation of validity for (educational and psychological) measurement; they explicitly eschew delving into validity as it applies to academic discourses or to research. Following an introductory chapter, Chapters 2–5 follow the evolving history of validity from its genesis (mid-1800s–1951), its fragmentation (1952–1974), it reunification (1975–1999) and its deconstruction (2002–2012). In the sixth and final chapter, the authors argue for a framework of evaluation to be applied to assessment processes, inspired by Messick’s (1980) progressive matrix. Chapter 2 begins by noting that interest in the concept of validity rose to prominence with the tide of examinations and psychological measurement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and concludes with an account of the empirical approach of Paul Meehl and Lee Cronbach. The authors suggest that contemporary accounts of this period are often simplistic and assume greater naivety on the part of early theorists than was actually the case. They argue that, contrary to this view, by