The Importance of Validity How to Avoid Garbage In, Garbage Out Research Notes are published by various research groups within NCS Pearson. If you have any questions about any of the information in this document, use our on-line form to ask your question.
Validity is one of the most important concepts in survey research.
Without validity, you have meaningless results and have wasted a great deal of time, energy, and money. Much of the confusion surrounding validity is probably due to the cavalier manner in which the term frequently is used. This Research Note presents general issues surrounding validity, as well as different types of validity. Validity Defined For many consumers their only concern with validity is that their survey has it. In other words, if your findings need to be appropriate, meaningful and useful, they need to be valid.