Abstract

The present study, the purpose of which was to assess the levels of external and internal construct validity intrinsic to the new JMLQ recruitment instrument, involved three groups of participants: (I) that involving internal construct validity and consisting of 1025 individuals, of whom roughly 75 % were female and 25 % male, of a mean age of 44.7 years (II) that involving participants’ educational level, consisting of 929 individuals, and (III) that consisting of participants’ occupational level, consisting of 469 individuals. For this purpose, the status of 'Construct validity' issues of the JMLQ instrument was analyzed: (i) empirical analysis of the theoretical structure of the constructs, (ii) construct reliability, and (iii) associations between the constructs and the external objectives. It was observed that strong internal construct validity was assured by the high mean factor standardized loadings, measures of reliability, whereas the high external relationships between the JML factors and the 16pf dimensions and the invariant patterns of correlations between both the former and the latter all argue the case for strikingly high external construct validity. Furthermore, the results indicated that (a) low educational level (i. e. involving II), and (b) less specialized occupational level and prowess (i.e. involving III), had predicted successfully the lower accuracy and slower speed of performance, by “low-capacity” reasoners, in the JMLQ and 16pf tests of logical reasoning aptitude all of which may imply that “high-capacity” reasoners mobilize their ‘deepest’ or semantic levels of processing. Finally, Cronbach’s alpha testing indicated satisfactory to good reliability values. These findings lend credence to the suitability of the JMLQ instrument for purposes of facilitating effective recruitment and imply central components relating to the highest levels of functional cognitive capacity.