Question

Explain the concepts of internal validity and external validity with examples.

Answer 1

Internal validity is a phenomenon where how well an experiment is done in terms of avoiding confounding independent variables. If an experiment avoids more than one independent variable from acting at the same time, it’s said to have internal validity. If an experiment studies the relationship between employees’ pay determines their performance, we should include only that independent variable and not others such as their personality, character, communication skills etc.

External validity refers to an experiment’s ability to generalize the results to other people and areas. For example, if the experiment focuses on the correlation between more screen time and the academic performance, the result should be capable of applicable to more people in the country.