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Qual Quant (2010) 44:749759
DOI 10.1007/s11135-009-9224-0
RESEARCH NOTE
Riccardo Sartori
Published online: 17 October 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009
Abstract Face validity is a controversial kind of test validity. Personality tests are divided into two big categories: projective techniques and psychometric instruments. They differ also for face validity, which inuences the perception that people have of tests themselves. The article reports the scientic debate on face validity, and the results of a study carried out on naive subjects in order to let them compare projective techniques and psychometric instruments on the mere basis of their surface. An ad hoc questionnaire was administered. It asked subjects to compare projective techniques and psychometric instruments by using 13 adjectives. The sample, accidental, is composed of 238 participants, 45 males and 193 females. The data were substantially analyzed through techniques of Correspondence Analysis. Personality tests are principally judged through two dimensions: the aesthetic and the efcacy. The rst dimension characterizes in particular projective techniques; the second, psychometric instruments. Although participants acknowledge that psychometric instruments are credible and scientic, there is a clear preference for projective techniques, principally by females, people younger than 22 and participants with lower education. Personality tests have an appearance that is judged by those who look at them. The aesthetic seems to prevail on the efcacy perception, but it would be suitable to carry on the same research with a sample stratied in respect of the personal details measured by the questionnaire.
Keywords Psychological testing Personality tests Psychometric instruments Projective
techniques Face validity Measurement
1 Introduction
The term validity, referred to psychological tests, indicates the degree to which the test actually measures what it purports to measure (Anastasi and Urbina 1997, p. 8). Although from
R. Sartori (B)
Verona University, c/o Centro Docimologico, Via S. Francesco, 22, 37129 Verona, Italy e-mail: [email protected]
Face validity in personality tests: psychometric instruments and projective techniques in comparison
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a theoretical point of view validity represents a well dened characteristic of tests, authors generally agree with two facts (cf. Sartori and Pasini 2007):
1. From its birth to today, the concept of validity has changed and evolved (Borsboom et al. 2004): from the question of whether a test measures what it intends to measure (Kelley...