A nomological network (or nomological net) is a representation of the concepts (constructs) of interest in a study, their observable manifestations, and the interrelationships between these. The term "nomological" derives from the Greek, meaning "lawful", or in philosophy of science terms, "law-like". It was Cronbach and Meehl's view of construct validity that in order to provide evidence that a measure has construct validity, a nomological network must be developed for its measure.
The necessary elements of a nomological network are:
- At least two constructs;
- One or more theoretical propositions, specifying linkages between constructs, for example: "As age increases, memory loss increases".
- Correspondence rules, allowing each construct to be measured empirically. Such a rule is said to "operationalize" the construct, as for example in the operationalization: "Age" is measured by asking "how old are you?"
- Empirical linkages represent hypotheses before data collection, empirical generalizations after data collection.
Validity evidence based on nomological validity is a general form of construct validity. It is the degree to which a construct behaves as it should within a system of related constructs (the nomological network).
Nomological networks are used in theory development and use a modernist approach.
See also
References
- Preckel, Franzis; Brunner, Martin (2017), "Nomological Nets", in Zeigler-Hill, Virgil; Shackelford, Todd K. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences, Springer International Publishing, pp. 1–4, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1334-1, ISBN 9783319280998
- Cronbach, L.J.; Meehl, P.E. (1955). "Construct validity in psychological tests". Psychological Bulletin. 52 (4): 281–302. doi:10.1037/h0040957. hdl:11299/184279. PMID 13245896. S2CID 5312179.
- Liu, Liping; Li, Chan; Zhu, Dan (2012). "A New Approach to Testing Nomological Validity and Its Application to a Second-Order Measurement Model of Trust". Journal of the Association for Information Systems. 13 (12): 950–975. doi:10.17705/1jais.00320.
- Alavi, M, Archibald, M., McMaster, R. Lopez, V. and Cleary, M. (2018) Aligning theory and methodology in mixed methods Research: Before Design Theoretical Placement International Journal of Social Research Methodology 21:5, 527-540
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