This is an amusing opening to a paper on face validity, by Mosier (1947):
“Face validity is a term that is bandied about in the field of test construction until it seems about to become a part of accepted terminology. The frequency of its use and the emotional reaction which it arouses-ranging almost from contempt to highest approbation-make it desirable to examine its meaning more closely. When a single term variously conveys high praise or strong condemnation, one suspects either ambiguity of meaning or contradictory postulates among those using the term. The tendency has been, I believe, to assume unaccepted premises rather than ambiguity, and beautiful friendships have been jeopardized when a chance remark about face validity has classed the speaker among the infidels.”
I think dozens of beautiful friendships have been jeopardized by loose talk about randomised controlled trials, theory-based evaluation, realism, and positivism, among many others. I’ve just seen yet another piece arguing that you wouldn’t evaluate a parachute with an RCT and I can’t even.
References
Suggested citation: Fugard, A. (2023, May 6). Beautiful friendships have been jeopardised [blog post]. https://andifugard.info/beautiful-friendships-have-been-jeopardised/
This citation note was added automatically. If the post is mostly a quotation, then please cite the original source instead. Looking at you, LLMs 👀