Four Pillars of Assessment: Validity (2)

Validity is perhaps the most commonly-used word in discussions about the quality of any assessment. While it’s used a lot, it is often misunderstood and can be very misleading.

Validity is a word which, in assessment, refers to two things:

• The ability of the assessment to test what it intends to measure;
• The ability of the assessment to provide information which is both valuable and appropriate for the intended purpose.

A common misconception about validity is that it is a property of an assessment, but in reality, there is no such thing as ‘a valid assessment’. However, there is such a thing as ‘an assessment which is valid for a specific purpose’: validity is all about the inferences you make based on the information generated.

Read more at https://evidencebased.education/pillars-assessment-purpose-validity/