Reconsidering the Construct Validity of “Political Knowledge”

ABSTRACT

Current measures of political knowledge have limited construct validity, severely restricting our ability to draw from them either empirical or normative conclusions about the public’s level of political knowledge. Using a unique survey, I show that respondents’ level of political knowledge relative to their knowledge of other subjects is very sensitive to question choice. Indeed, an individual researcher’s selection of questions will change the normative implications of the results. The lack of construct validity for measures of political knowledge—one of the foundational pillars of research on political behavior—suggests a desperate need for new, reliable measures of knowledge that fairly assess voter knowledge and, by extension, competence.

Keywords:

• construct validity
• political knowledge
• public ignorance
• voter competence

Notes

1. Theodora Nathan received one Electoral College vote running for Vice President on the Libertarian ticket in 1972. This question should have specified that it was asking about the first vice presidential nomination of a major political party.