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I had this question on an exam, and I was positive that the answer was A.

The Beck Depression Inventory is a scale intended to measure depression levels, with higher scores indicative of higher levels of depression. If this were a valid measure of depression, we would expect that:

A) the results of the inventory cannot be consistently replicated.

B) a person's score on the inventory is not related to his or her level of depression.

C) people who get higher scores on the Beck Depression Inventory are more depressed than people who get low scores.

D) people who get lower scores on the Beck Depression Inventory are more depressed than people who get high scores.

I don't think my answer was wrong. If the test was valid, it is not necessarily reliable. Just because you are taking the same test, you are not going to get the same score every time. You are going to get a score that reflects your depression level at the time of taking the test. Which means that the results cannot be consistently replicated.

Any help with this problem is appreciated.

user125334
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I think the answer is C. A valid measure means it reliably covaries with the underlying "construct" to borrow a social science phrase. It does not mean that it always gives the same results, especially if your levels of depression change. What it does mean is that if your depression levels do not change, then it should have good test-retest precision. For example, if you take 10 IQ tests in the same day, then you should get pretty much the same score on each (give or take some error). However, if you took 10 IQ tests when you were 7 years old and then 10 more when you were 25 years old, then you would not expect the socres to be the same due to brain development.

Basically, validity just means it measures what it purports to measure, much like a thermometer reading is a valid measure of the temperature but not the humidity.