Threats to Internal and External Validity in Health Professions Education Research.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, the Department of the Navy, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. Additional resources: Popham WJ. Educational Evaluation. 3rd ed. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon; 1993. Shadish WR, Cook TD, Campbell DT. Experimental and Quasi Experimental Designs for Generalized Causal Inference. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin; 2002. Author contact: dario.torre@usuhs.edu Internal validity refers to the degree to which inferences can be made about the causal relationship between two variables. External validity pertains to whether study outcomes can be generalized across different persons, treatments, outcomes, and settings. Internal and external threats to validity can occur during any stage of the research process. Below, we describe some of the most common threats to internal and external validity.
Academic medicine journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges