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For the ecological validity of a cue in perception, see ecological validity (perception).

Ecological validity is a form of validity in an experiment. In order for an experiment to possess ecological validity, the methods, materials and setting of the experiment must approximate the real-life situation that is under study.^[1] Unlike internal and external validity, ecological validity is not necessary to the overall validity of an experiment.^[2]

Ecological validity is often confused with external validity (which deals with the ability of a study's results to generalize). While these forms of validity are closely related, they are independent--a study may possess external validity but not ecological validity, and vice-versa .^[1][2] For example, mock-jury research is designed to study how people might act if they were jurors during a trial, but many mock-jury studies simply provide written transcripts or summaries of trials, and do so in classroom or office settings. Such experiments do not approximate the actual look, feel and procedure of a real courtroom trial, and therefore lack ecological validity. However, the more important concern is that of external validity--if the results from such mock-jury studies generalize to real trials, then the research is valid as a whole, despite its ecological shortcomings. Nonetheless, improving the ecological validity of an experiment typically improves the external validity as well.

• external validity
• construct validity
• content validity
• statistical conclusion validity

1. ^ ^{a b} Brewer, M. (2000). Research Design and Issues of Validity. In Reis, H. and Judd, C. (eds) Handbook of Research Methods in Social and Personality Psychology. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
2. ^ ^{a b} Shadish, W., Cook, T., and Campbell, D. (2002). Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Generalized Causal Inference Boston:Houghton Mifflin.