The Necessity of Construct and External Validity for Generalized Causal Claims
Channel: Center for Open Science
Date: 2023-05-23

Session: The Necessity of Construct and External Validity for Generalized Causal Claims

Speaker: Kevin M. Esterling, Professor of Public Policy and Political Science, University of California, Riverside

Abstract: Drawing on the philosophy of casualty, this lightning talk will offer a critique and extension of the Credibility Revolution, which is arguably the dominant approach to quantitative causal inference. The talk will demonstrate that assumptions regarding construct and external validity are essential for making generalized causal claims. We build on recent work that formalizes construct and external validity and augment that recent literature by connecting these aspects of validity to deductive notions of causality, a conclusion that is novel to our accompanying paper. Since these assumptions ultimately are founded on qualitative and theoretical understandings of a causal process, our approach clarifies the central role of qualitative research in underwriting deductive understandings of causality in quantitative research.