Introducing a flexible approach to test validity based on a context-specific construct.

Although validity is acknowledged as the most fundamental consideration in psychological and educational testing, there is disagreement stemming from two different approaches: the ontological vs. the epistemological. This article introduces a flexible approach to test validity based on context-specific constructs, which can accommodate the two existing approaches conceptually. Based on the test foundation and rationale, a unique construct domain can be defined and measured by one test score given that the score meaning is valid. With the separation of the meaning and use validities and different types of score use (i.e., basic, extended, and joint), the proposed approach offers great flexibility for test validation. However, this paper only provides a skeleton for the flexible approach, and much more work is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]