content validity

the extent to which a test measures a representative sample of the subject matter or behavior under investigation. For example, if a test is designed to survey arithmetic skills at a third-grade level, content validity indicates how well it represents the range of arithmetic operations possible at that level. Modern approaches to determining content validity involve the use of exploratory factor analysis and other multivariate statistical procedures.

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Psychology term of the day

March 17th 2025

enactment

1. the acting out of an important life event rather than expressing it in words. See psychodrama.

2. in some forms of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, the patient’s reliving of past relationships in the transference relationship with the therapist and, conversely, the therapist’s move away from active neutrality to unwittingly intertwine personal issues into symbolic interactions with the patient (a countertransference phenomenon). Attunement to the relational patterns that emerge in this therapeutic relationship offers the therapist an opportunity to help the patient acknowledge and work through similar patterns in the patient’s relationships with others. See also relational psychoanalysis; self psychology.

3. in some forms of couples therapy, a technique in which the therapist recreates areas of conflict between partners in order to facilitate bonding moments.

4. see structural family therapy.