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Threats to Research Validity

Research is an indispensable part of modern reality, facilitating the progress and development of societies, economies, and individuals. Thus, it is crucial to ensure the quality of research at all its stages. The most critical aspect of quality is research validity, or whether the results of studies are interpreted and understood correctly. Threats to validity are characteristics of research designs that lessen the degree to which results are interpreted correctly. This entry first discusses conceptual frameworks of research validity and then looks at specific types of validity threats and ways of avoiding validity threats.

Conceptual Frameworks of Research Validity

In quantitative research, the term validity is often used to discuss measurement validity, which refers to the degree to which an instrument or test measures what is supposed to be measured. In qualitative research, validity is concerned with whether findings are representative of participants’ experiences. Although they are not precisely the same concepts, researchers also use the terms trustworthiness, quality, and rigor when discussing research validity. Isadore Newman and Carolyn R. Benz suggest the term legitimation to denote a broader understanding of truth value.

Three key concepts related to validity are transferability, dependability, and confirmability. Transferability stresses that validity is anchored in a given context. Thus, transferability shows the way studies can be applied or transferred to other environments. Dependability refers to the stability of data and the degree to which data are collected in a way that is precise and reliable. Dependability can be achieved by triangulation and sequencing of methods. The third concept is confirmability, which highlights the qualitative side of objectivity. Thus, confirmability is aimed at recognizing and investigating systematic biases that take place in research, which are threats to research validity that can be either intended or unintended.

Donald T. Campbell and Julian C. Stanley, who introduced the concept of threats to validity in a 1963 book, discuss three types of research validity: internal validity, external validity, and construct validity. Internal validity is understood as the causal relationship between one or more independent variables and one or more dependent variables. External validity involves how the results can be used in other contexts. Construct validity refers to the degree to which a construct under investigation is accurately measured and interpreted.

Types of Threats

Some threats to validity take into account the role of researchers engaged in studies. Researcher-dependent variability encompasses the factors influencing trustworthiness that depend on scientists. These factors include, among others, the researchers’ diligence in creating and conducting experiments and the procedures they use in sampling. Researcher-independent variability includes factors that do not depend on the performance of researchers. Threats to validity that are independent of the performance of researchers include, among others, technological failures or fake answers provided by respondents.

Language can also be analyzed as a potential threat to research validity. First, language barriers may determine the understanding of questions. When studies are conducted in a language that is not the participants’ native language, researchers should pay attention to participants’ level of fluency with the language. Even when participants are fluent in the language of the study, if it is not their native language, their perception of phenomena and speed of selecting answers may be different than if the same questions were asked in their mother tongue. Another crucial factor is technology; validity may be influenced by access to technology. For example, Internet surveys may exclude people who have no Internet access or do not have a high-speed connection. In addition, the speed of individuals’ Internet connection may influence their choices when taking a survey.

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