At times, sufficient accumulated validity evidence is available for a selection procedure to justify its use in a new situation without conducting a local validation research study. In these instances, use of the selection procedure may be based on demonstration of the generalized validity inferences from that selection procedure, coupled with a compelling argument for its applicability to the ...

Philosophy abounds in troublesome modal arguments-endlessly debated, perennially plausible, perennially suspect. The standards of validity for modal reasoning have long been unclear; they become clear only when we provide a semantic analysis of modal logic by reference to possible worlds and to possible things therein.2 Thus insofar as we understand modal reasoning at all, we understand it as d...

BACKGROUND Large-scale educational assessments in the U.S. are used as policy tools for improving instruction and evaluating educational programs and the effectiveness of educators. Because of the high-stakes nature of their use, it is imperative that validity evidence based on testing consequences is obtained to support their multiple purposes. METHOD A comprehensive review of the literature...

In ever so many philosophical introductions to formal logic the latter is presented as the philosopher’s ars iudicandi, i.e. as the instrument that evaluates the quality of philosophical arguments or, more generally, of informal reasoning. Irrespective of its content, an argument is only worthy of consideration if it is valid, i.e. if the truth of its premise(s) necessitates the truth of its co...

I present sound and complete natural deduction systems for (quantified modal) imperative logic, in five steps. (1) Syntax: I introduce imperative formal languages by using the imperative operator ‘!’; e.g., if ‘A’ is a declarative sentence, ‘!A’ (“let A be true’’) is an imperative sentence. (2) Semantics: I introduce interpretations of imperative formal languages, and (building on previous work...

The theme of this paper is the relationship between what one might call ‘speech act’ or ‘token validity’ on the one hand; and ‘formal’ or ‘type validity’ on the other. The former concerns the conditions under which the inference from premisses P to conclusion Q is properly made. The latter the study of what follows from what, the implication relationships between the sentences. One might expect...

This paper sharpens the distinction between inferential and logcon arguments. Inferential arguments represent possible inferences, ones need not. clarifies roles that play in accounting for normativity of validity reasoning establishing theoretical connection logical consequence. There are two related takeaways. First, is grounded on notion an argument. will account use to judge inference face ...

The embedded and contingent nature of classroom-based formative assessment means that validity in the norm-referenced, summative tradition cannot be understood exactly same way for assessment. In fact, some scholars (e.g., Gipps, Beyond testing: towards a theory educational assessment, 1994, Falmer Press, London, UK) have even contended an entirely different paradigm with independent set criter...