Construct Validity: Relationship of the COPS-P Interest Inventory to Similar Instruments

Correlations of inventories such as the COPS-P with other similar inventories provides information concerning the construct validity of the assessments. This technique is especially useful when developing and implementing new and/or alternative instruments. In the case of the COPS-P, which is an alternate form of the COPS Interest Inventory (COPS, Knapp & Knapp-Lee, 2015), correlations with the COPS clusters are useful in understanding the nature of the COPS-P scales. Correlations between the COPS Interest Inventory and the COPS-P are presented in the table below based on 153 college students.

Correlations between the conceptually similar scales of the COPS-P and the COPS range from .37 to .81 with a median correlation of .65. The correlations were highest between conceptually similar scales. For example, the COPS-P Science, Medical Life and Physical scales were most highly correlated with the COPS Science, Professional and Skilled clusters. This trend was evident for all the COPS-P to COPS scale correlations. The only conceptually similar scales that did not correlate as highly as expected were the COPS Service, Skilled cluster with the COPS-P Service clusters. However, this is not surprising as the COPS-P is used by college students that have self-selected out of all the occupations within the Service, Skilled cluster.

As might be expected in every instance the COPS-P scale is more highly related to the corresponding COPS Professional level scale than the Skilled level scales. The correlations between all the conceptually similar scales provide evidence that supports the validity of the two instruments.

Click Here to see full size table as .pdf

Technical Supplement June 2019.