Resumen de Conceptions of validity as framework for the validation of ability constructs
Validation is the ongoing process of rendering more plausible some score interpretations and test uses, and of challenging other interpretations and uses. Different types of evidence are thus needed when test scores are interpreted or used in different ways. Tacit theories about how fue concept ability should be defined, and thus how abilities should be measured, often guide the search for evidence that can warrant the claims made about ability test scores (see Messick, 1989). Four of the most cornmon definitions of ability are the latent trait, task-based, process-based, and person-in-situation views. But behind these definitions lies an even broader set of assumptions about whether variation is best understood categorically, as in much experimental science, or probabilistically, as in evolutionary biology and differential psychology. It is argued that the situated view of ability best accornmodates both ways of thinking about variation.
