Tolerance Intervals: Alternatives to Credibility Intervals in Validity Generalization Research

In validity generalization research, the estimated mean and variance of the true validity distribution are often used to construct a credibility interval, an inter-val containing a specified proportion of the true valid-ity distribution. The statistical interpretation of this in-terval in the literature has varied between Bayesian and classical (frequentist) viewpoints. Credibility in-tervals are here discussed from the frequentist perspec-tive. These are known as "tolerance intervals " in the statistical literature. Two new methods for construct-ing a credibility interval are presented. Unlike the cur-rent method of constructing the credibility interval, tolerance intervals have known performance character-istics across repeated applications, justifying confi-dence statements. The new methods may be useful in validity generalization research involving a small or moderate number of validation studies. Inde