Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) Practice Exam

External validity is about whether study results apply to other people and settings beyond the study itself. The factor that most directly influences this is sample representativeness: when the participants closely reflect the broader population and range of contexts you aim to generalize to, the findings are more likely to hold in those real-world settings. If the sample is biased or limited to a narrow group, generalizing the results becomes questionable, even if the study is well-controlled. Internal controls, while important, affect internal validity by reducing biases within the study design and execution, not generalizability to other groups. Measurement precision concerns how accurately outcomes are measured within the study, impacting reliability and validity of the observed effects, but not the extent to which results apply elsewhere. Sample size affects statistical power and the precision of estimates within the study, and while it can influence the stability of findings, the direct determinant of external validity remains how representative the sample is of the target population.