The Definitive Answer to Your Internal vs External Validity
When determining a cause and effect relationship, one can understand its validity by evaluating internal vs external validity.
Internal validity is how confident you are that the tested causal relationship is accurate and not distracted by any factor or variable.
External validity is the possibility of applying results (generalised) from a particular study to other events, groups, or situations.
Any study can be mainly validated through the experimental design, and this validity can be verified through the tests or tools.
Balancing internal vs external validity
A perfect internal and external validity are often dependent on each other and reflect your priorities in your research.
Example of the balancing One can test an unconventional relationship in a lab environment or the real world. However, the external validity is comparatively lesser than internal validity because a lab environment is not the same as the real world, which is often influenced by external factors.
A solution to such a balancing is to research in an artificial or controlled environment to create a causal relationship with an on-field experiment to analyse the accuracy of the outcomes in this real world.
Challenges posed to Internal Validity vs External Validity
In this section, we will first discuss internal validity. Eight factors threaten it:
- History: Unexpected events influence the requirements of a study and its outcome.
- Maturation: Time affects job satisfaction (dependent variable).
- Testing<: The pre-test (establishes a baseline) influences the post-test results.
- Selection of Participants: Participants in control and experimental groups- differ significantly and can’t be compared to each other.
- Attrition: Throughout a study, particularly a longer one, participants are likely to quit. If it results from the experimental treatment (opposite to coincidence), then the internal validity can be threatened.
- Regression towards Mean: Participants with high scores are near to the second measurement’s average.
- Instrumentation: Method of measuring the job satisfaction changes at the time of the study.
- Social Interaction: Interaction between group and participants influences the result.
Let’s now discuss external validity:
- Testing: Participation of the people in the pre-test influences treatment’s reaction.
- Sampling Biasness: Participants differ significantly from the overall population.
- Hawthorne Effect: The behaviour of the participants changes because they know they are under study.
There’re many more challenges posed to this type of validity.
Explaining Threats of Internal Validity vs External Validity with a Suitable Example
Example: Company X’s management wishes to know whether flexible working hours will raise job satisfaction amongst staff members. They created six months experiment with two types of groups, one in which participants have to work in fixed hours and another in which participants have to work flexible hours. They fill out a survey form indicating how much they are satisfied with their job before and after the test, i.e., pre-test and post-test, respectively.
Internal Validity
|
Challenge Posed |
Example |
|
History |
A new or better team manager begins working at the time of the study, increasing staff member’s job satisfaction. |
|
Maturation |
In the six months’ time, staff members get more experience and gain efficiency in completing the assigned tasks, improving job satisfaction. |
|
Testing |
Staff members feel they should consistently answer in the pre-test and post-test. |
|
Selection of Participants |
Staff members can participate voluntarily in this experiment for better job satisfaction instead of arbitrarily allocating one group to staff members. Thus, this will lead to more engaged staff members in the experimental group to start with. |
|
Attribution |
Genuinely dissatisfied employees will change their job while under this study. Furthermore, it will improve the average job satisfaction rate as discontinuation will not be incorporated after the test ends (post-test). |
|
Regression towards Mean |
Employees scoring very low in their initial survey are likely to reflect a much higher job satisfaction than the average scorers. |
|
Instrumentation |
The post-test questionnaire comprises a set of additional questions against the pre-test questionnaire. |
|
Social Interaction |
The staff members working in fixed hours hold grudges against staff members with flexible hours as, unlike them, they get to work in flexible working hours. |
FAQs on Internal vs External Validity
What is internal vs external validity?
- Internal validity is how confident you are of the genuineness of the tested causal relationship and not uninfluenced by any factor or variable.
- External validity is the possibility of applying results (generalised) from a particular study to other groups, events, or situations.
Why should I learn about internal vs external validity?
You should learn them because they indicate whether the outcomes of a particular study are genuine and significant. Also, the former is relevant to how well a study is held in terms of its structure. On the other hand, the latter is relevant to the applicability of the real-world findings.
On what terms do internal vs external validity differ?
They differ in terms of their meaning, concern, what they measure and provide the researcher with.
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