Assessing the Validity of Evaluation Research by Means of Meta-Analysis. Case211 Illustrations from Road Safety Research

摘要

This dissertation is based on seven appended papers, all published in scientific211u001ejournals. The main research problem discussed in the dissertation is whether meta-211u001eanalysis can be used to assess the methodological quality of evaluation studies. 211u001eIllustrations of the use of meta-analysis for this purpose are given. The 211u001eillustrations have been taken from road safety research. The dissertation 211u001ediscusses the concept of validity and proposes a set of formal criteria of 211u001evalidity for use in assessing the quality of evaluation studies. A distinction is 211u001emade between four types of validity: Statistical conclusion validity, theoretical 211u001evalidity, internal validity, and external validity. Twenty criteria of validity 211u001eare proposed, of which nine criteria concern statistical conclusion validity, 211u001efour refer to internal validity, and three refer to external validity.