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Threats To Internal And External Validity Essay

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Consider the various threats to internal and external validity described in the text. Discuss the various threats and explain which you think would be the most threatening to the worth of a study. Which of the threats do you think would be more commonly faced than others?
There are a variety of threats to internal and external validity when referencing an experiment. Internal validity evaluates the soundness of the procedures in the experiment. It reflects the ability to accurately measure the impact of the independent variable on the dependent variable. Internal threats include history, maturation, selection, testing, reactive measures, instrumentation, regression to the mean, mortality, and diffusion or imitation of treatment.
History presents a threat in that the results obtained from the experiment may be influenced by outside historical situations or events. An example of this would be if a study was done to evaluate people’s intended choice for a presidential candidate and then it is found out that one of the candidates has done something immoral. This one act could change people’s perception of the candidate and ultimately sway their vote to another candidate or maybe even across party lines.
Maturation provides a …show more content…

Many times researchers will use those participants who are most readily available and willing to participate in research. Many times researchers may end up with a group that is not necessarily representative of the greater population, but a more defined population. It is more difficult to achieve generalizability in this circumstance. I believe the biggest threat to external validity rests with the researcher to avoid experimenter effects. I think it would be common for anyone to have a preconceived idea of what they think might happen and then have difficulty not looking for results or patterns that support that idea and ignoring (or discounting) contrary

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