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ON THE VALIDITY OF MEASUREMENT IN KINESIOMETRICS 
CONTEXT
Franjo PROT 1
1 University of Zagreb, Faculty of Kinesiology, Horvaćanski zavoj 15, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
e-mail: pipo@kif.hr
ABSTRACT
Kinesiometrics is a scientifi c discipline which deals with problems of measurement 
in kinesiology, with the development of new theoretical and applied measurement mod-
els and with practical procedures in the fi eld of the measurement of behavior relevant 
to kinesiology. In this document, contribution validity (one of the most important con-
cepts) is systemized and organized from the general bird’s-eye view, taking into the 
account the psychometric heritage and kinesiometric experience. In the fi rst step we 
recognize the traditional separation of validities into two major groups, i.e. as validi-
ties a priori (in psychometrics aprioristic validities) and validities a posteriori. These 
two groups are further splitted and divided into several groups and up to four levels, 
up to the point where concrete data analysis methods and techniques could be recog-
nized for its determination. To be able to recognize most of the problems encountered 
in grasping validity in its diversity acceptable systematization would be of great help.
Keywords: measurement, validity, kineziometrics
VELJAVNOST MERJENJA V KONTEKSTU KINEZIOMETRIJE
IZVLEČEK
Kineziometrija je znanstvena disciplina, ki se ukvarja s problemi merjenja v kinezi-
ologiji ter raziskovanjem novih teoretičnih in uporabnih modelov merjenja, na katerih 
temeljijo postopki merjenja, ki so pomembni za področje preučevanja kineziologije. 
V tem prispevku je veljavnost, kot eden najpomembnejših okvirov za sistematično or-
ganiziranost predstavljen iz “ptičje perspektive”, pri čemer upoštevamo psihometrično 
ozadje in kineziometrične izkušnje. V prvem koraku priznavamo tradicionalno delitev 
veljavnosti v dve glavni skupini, to sta predhodno preverjanje veljavnosti in naknadno 
preverjanje veljavnosti. Ti dve skupini se v nadaljevanju delita v več skupin do četrte 
ravni, vse do točke, kjer lahko opredelimo in določimo konkretne metode analize po-
review article UDC: 796.01
received: 2010-10-02
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datkov. Ob zavedanju problemov, povezanih s zagotavljanjem in razumevanjem vel-
javnosti v vsej svoji raznolikosti, bi bilo sprejetje sistematizacije v veliko pomoč.
Ključne besede: merjenje, veljavnost, kineziometrija
INTRODUCTION
Kinesiometrics, in its development from the early 1970’s, absorbed much of its 
achievements from psychometrics, which was already well founded and developed as a 
pure and applied discipline among psychologists. The origin of  the term kinesiometrics 
“kineziometrija” in its contemporary context can be traced back to Zagreb’s kinesiol-
Figure 1: A part of the fi rst page of student notes from an audio recording for the fi rst 
course on Kinesiometrics (“kineziometrija”) from the postgraduate study of Kinesiol-
ogy, from the years 1971-72 at the College of Physical Education (currently the Faculty 
of Kinesiology).
Franjo PROT: ON THE VALIDITY OF MEASUREMENT IN KINESIOMETRICS CONTEXT, 113–121
ANNALES KINESIOLOGIAE • 1 • 2010 • 2
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ogy circle (Momirović, 1971; ***, 1984;  Anić and Goldštajn, 1999, 2002; Prot, 2008), 
from the level of lecture notes up to the lexical item in  the lexicons and dictionaries 
(Figures 1., 2. and 3.).
Kinesiometrics is a scientifi c discipline which deals with problems of measurement 
in kinesiology. Kinesiometrics deals with the development of new theoretical and ap-
plied measurement models and practical procedures in the fi eld of the measurement of 
human movement behavior relevant to kinesiology. Applied kinesiologists i.e. physical 
education teachers, physical fi tness and sport and recreation professionals shared simi-
lar problems. One of their objectives is to develop a reliable and valid measurement 
which will allow diagnostic and prognostic operations estimating the level of success 
of individual participants in criterion variables. The validity was and is the key concept. 
To be able to recognize most of the problems encountered in grasping it in its diversity, 
acceptable systematization would be of great help. An implicit and explicit contribu-
tion to the development of a deeper insight with the elements of systematization could 
be traced back to psychology and psychometric sources such as: Radosavljević (1908, 
Figure 2: Defi nition of the term “kineziometrija” kinesiometrics on page 201 of  the 
Sport Lexicon from 1984.
Figure 3: The term kinesiometrics “kineziometrija” was introduced to Anić-Goldstein’s 
dictionary on page 675 (Anić & Goldstein, 1999).
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1909), Radosavljević (1910), Guliksen (1950), Bujas (1954), Guilford (1954); Cron-
bach (1960), Momirović (1966), Wainer and Brown (1988), Jones and Tissen (2007), 
Kingston (2007), with the permanent diffusion of new psychometric developments 
to other fi elds. The development of The Standards for Educational and Psychological 
Testing of the American Psychological Association (1999) also demonstrate an evolu-
tion of concepts.
The founding symposium on establishing an International Kinesiometrics Forum 
in Koper at the Universtiy of Primorska held on 21st May, 2009, seemed to be the most 
appropriate place to discus validity as topic of interest  and was dedicated jointly to the 
memory of two extraordinary scholars and teachers who contributed to the develop-
ment to kinesiometrics in Europe before its formal foundation; these were namely Pro-
fessor Konstantin Momirović and Professor Stanislav Čelikovský. In this contribution, 
concepts of validity are systemized and organized from a bird’s eye view, taking into 
account kinesiometric developments and experiences.
Systematization of validity
Within one hundred years of the gradual accumulation of knowledge and experi-
ence, it is possible to distinguish principles which are of theoretical and educational 
value and which offer a natural extension to systematization. The main result of this 
contribution is summarized by Table 1 and Figure 4.
At the beginning of the inquiry, we postulated the principle which we use for our 
investigation of validity, that is, we will accustom phylosophical, i.e. epistemiological 
groundfl ore that a priori knowledge or justifi cation is independent of experience; and a 
posteriori knowledge or justifi cation is dependent on experience or empirical evidence. 
A priori valdity of the construct subsumes the types of justifi cations and methodologies 
face, content, and theoretical aspects. A posteriori validity of construct subsumes all of 
the procedures which can be operationalized and verifi ed as data analysis techniques. 
As posteroiry internal (construct) and external (pragmatic) validities are identifi ed. In-
ternal validity is preented with intra and inter subtypes. Intra subtypes are a latent trait 
(factor validity), as noticed by Momirović (1966) and a latent class (taxonomic valid-
ity), as noticed by Momirović, Wolf, Džamonja and Hošek (1993). Inter validities split 
into the two sub types, i.e. convergent and divergent validities. External validity with 
sub types concurrent (diagnostic) and predictive (prognostic). Further on sub types are 
formed on the basis of quantitative/qualitative representation metrics of data to be col-
lected. In this way, these main categories are further divided introducing further addi-
tional principles not contradicted to those already previously established. This process 
continues up to the point where concrete data analysis methods and techniques could be 
recognized for its determination, for example Hayashi (1980). In this way, the validity 
concepts are presented from a general macro level to the micro level of data analysis 
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methods and techniques which are employed in its determination in kinesiometrics 
research. The four strata levels are suffi cient for a general approach. More data analysis 
specifi c sub taxonomy is generated from the fi fth stratum on.
Table 1: Systematization of validity of measurement in kinesiometric context (an outline 
presentation).
0.0 VALIDITY OF MEASUEMENT
1.0 a priori (theoretic, hypothetic, aprioristic) validity of the construct 
 1.1 face validity
 1.2 content validity
 1.3 theoretic validity 
2.0 a posteriori (empiricaly determined) validity of the construct 
 2.1 internal validity (symptomatic)
 2.1.1 “intra validity“ (content referenced)
 2.1.1.1 latent trait (factor) validity
 2.1.1.1.1 explorative factor validity
 2.1.1.1.2 confi rmative factor validity
 2.1.1.2 latent class (taxonomic or cluster) validity
 2.1.1.2.1 explorative taxonomic  validity
 2.1.1.2.2 confi rmative taxonomic validity
 2.1.2 “inter validity“ (construct referenced)
 2.1.2.1 convergent validity
 2.1.2.2 divergent validity
 2.2 external validity (exterior criterion referenced), (pragmatic)
 2.2.1 concurrent (diagnostic) validity
 2.2.1.1 quantitative criteria
 2.2.1.2 qualitative criteria
 2.2.2. predictive (prognostic) validity
 2.2.2.1 quantitative criteria
 2.2.2.2 qualitative criteria
Here, we fi nally go further into the level of statistical and data analysis reason-
ing and arguments which strongly infl uence an outcome of systematisation: Lord and 
Novick (1968); Hayashi (1980), Momirović, and Gredelj (1980); Bujas (1981); Ferli-
goj, Leskošek and Kogovšek (1995); Momirović, Wolf and Popović (1999); McDonald 
(1999), Gliner and Morgan (2000), Rowe and Matew (2006),Wood and Zhu (2006), 
Zhu and Venter (2006), Zumbo (2007), for example. In this way, it is possible to distin-
guish the linear and nonlinear, the relatively simple, straight forward to the more com-
plex and more structured algorithms. It is interesting to point out that the multivariate 
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nature of the problem has been stressed several times. But initial enthusiasm with ca-
nonical correlation as a general approach: Hotelling (1936); Guliksen (1950); Mekota 
and Blahuš (1983), raised some doubts and offered criticism (Cohen and Cohen, 1983, 
2003). Some alternatives were offered as the problems were attacked from different di-
rections: Tucker (1958); Momirović. (1971); Momirović, Štalec and Zakrajšek (1973); 
Momirović, Dobrić, and Karaman (1983); Bosnar, Prot, and Momirović (1984); Hošek, 
Bosnar, and Prot (1984); Momirović, Štalec, Prot, Bosnar, Pavičić, Viskić-Štalec  and 
Dobrić (1984); Momirović, Bogdanović, Tenjović and Wolf (1994); Knežević and 
Momirović (1996), sometimes with a more general approach and sometimes with more 
particular solutions.
CONCLUSION
The synthesis of developments from psychometrics and experiences and the devel-
opment from kinesiometrics is possible. The systematization of concepts of validity up 
to the level of methods of their determination is presented. Enumeration of all of the 
previously proposed and presently available methods which will further fi t in to the 
systematization seems to be one of the next obvious research steps.
Figure 4: Systematization of validity of measurement in kinesiometrics context.
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