External Validity In Research

639 Words3 Pages
The two concepts concerning the validity of an experiment are known as external validity and internal validity. The relationship between these two ideas can be described as inversely proportional (Huitt, Hummel, & Kaeck, 1999). A copious amount of factors contributes to the role of internal and external validity. This statement causes the amounts of external and internal validity change with various trials of an experimental procedure. The definition of internal validity is the approximate truth concerning causal relationships (Trochim, W.M., 2006). In other words, the role of internal validity is to quantify and measure the strength of the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. Basically, this signifies that an increased level of internal validity in an investigation indicates that there is a strong causal relationship between both the dependent and independent variables. The relationship is so specific in the investigation that the researcher was able to figure out what influenced the dependent variable in this…show more content…
In other words, external validity is fundamentally how well an experiment can apply to other people not involved in the study rather than the people in the experiment. A way to improve the external validity of a study is to randomly select subjects rather than utilize a nonrandom method of selection (Trochim, W.M., 2006). The purpose of random selection is to assure that the sample obtained would accurately represent the population. Through this type of selection, the conclusions that one formulates from experimenting on the random sample may be applied to the general population of interest. Hence, generalization is the act of relating the results of a study to the population that the sample in a study represents and this is the basic purpose of external

More about External Validity In Research

Open Document