Suppose that you are planning to conduct a study to look at the effect of pet ownership on empathy, but that you cannot find any good measures of empathy (all of the measures that you find seem to fall short of your understanding of what empathy is, or to miss the mark completely). Unless you can find a measure that you are satisfied with, your research may end up being low in ____.
A) internal validity
B) external validity
C) construct validity of the cause
D) construct validity of the effect

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Without a good measure of empathy, it is difficult to establish the construct validity of the effect (the relationship between pet ownership and empathy). This could weaken the overall construct validity of the study. However, internal validity (the degree to which a study measures what it intends to measure) and external validity (the extent to which the results of a study can be generalized to other populations or settings) may not be affected as much by a lack of a good measure of empathy. The construct validity of the cause (pet ownership) is assumed to be established since it is the independent variable being manipulated in the study.

Suppose That You Are Planning to Conduct a Study to Look