Badges and validity

Badges have face validity. They make sense to anyone who has been a scout or played complex online games. They appear to document what they attest to measure.

As for other validity (Content validity; Predictive validity; Construct validity and others) the level of rigor to determine whether college courses, corporate training, MOOCs or any other learning has content validity is often times based on periodic curriculum reviews – is the textbook up to date, is the syllabus written to express content, does the instructor have content knowledge (if you believe a degree awarded 20 years ago, reflecting 18 hours of classes with content is a valid measure).  In many other cases it is rare and uniform.  Predictive validity in college does not exist for the most part.  Schools do not study the outcomes of individual student’s classes and follow them after graduation to determine if their college achievements predicted success or failure. Yes, they might link graduates in certain fields to finding a job, but that is a weak measure of validity of learning

It is a simple step for boy scouts and others who grew up with badges as evidence of achievement to understand how badges can be valid.  No one questions whether a robotic badge for a scout is valid.  We know there is uniform criteria to measure the achievement required and that scout leaders will not issue a badge unless it is earned. If MIT decide to issue a badges for achieving levels of competence in Calculus it would be readily accepted. The question is no whether badges can be validated but whether they can be more valid than college grades, degrees and certificates.