Journal Article

Validation as a Pragmatic, Scientific Activity

Kane, Michael T.

2013

Overview

This response to the comments contains three main sections, each addressing a subset of the comments. In the first section, I will respond to the comments by Brennan, Haertel, and Moss. All of these comments suggest ways in which my presentation could be extended or improved; I generally agree with their suggestions, so my response to their comments is brief. In the second section, I will respond to suggestions by Newton and Sireci that my framework be simplified by employing only one kind of argument, a validity argument, and dropping the interpretation/use argument (IUA); I am sympathetic to their desire for greater simplicity, but I see considerable value in keeping the IUA as a framework for the validation effort and will argue for keeping both the IUA and the validity argument. In the third section, I will respond to Borsboom and Markus, who raise a fundamental objection to my approach to validation, suggesting that I give too much attention to justification and too little to truth as a criterion for validity; I don't accept their proposed conception of validity, and I will indicate why.

• Publisher: Blackwell Publishing Ltd,Wiley Subscription Services,Wiley-Blackwell,Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subject: Beliefs / Comments / Debates / Decision Making / Desire / Educational evaluation / Educational research / Empirical evidence / Employment / Ethics / Evidence / Generalization / Inferences / Justification / Justified beliefs / Personnel evaluation / Phlogiston theory / Psychological assessment / Responses / Science activities / Scores / Simplicity / Subsets / Test Interpretation / Test Results / Test scores / Test Use / Truth / Validation / Validity