Defined by Lee Cronbach and Paul Meehl (Construct Validity in Psychological Tests, 1955), with the multitrait-multimethod matrix of Donald Campbell and Donald Fiske (1959).
Tests whether a measure captures the concept it is named for by checking its content, what it predicts, what it agrees with, and what it should not track.
When to reach for it
Designing a KPI, survey, or performance measure where optimizing the wrong proxy would carry real cost.
How it runs
- Define the concept so a stranger could apply it.
- Specify how the measure is computed and sourced.
- Check that it covers the concept's full content.
- Check that it predicts the outcomes the concept should predict.
- Check that it agrees with other measures of the concept, and not unrelated ones.
- Revise before scaling if any check fails.
Where it sits in SOLVE eX
Go to the source
- Construct Validity in Psychological Tests, Psychological Bulletin 52, 1955
- Convergent and Discriminant Validation by the Multitrait-Multimethod Matrix, Psychological Bulletin 56, 1959