v2026.1CASRAI Dictionary 1,610 entries across 24 domains · CC-BY 4.01,610 entries · CC-BY 4.0

Dictionary termTrack CStablev2026.2

Generalisability

The extent to which a study's findings extend to populations, settings, or conditions other than those directly sampled.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 21 May 2026

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Examples

Worked examples

Is an instance
A drug efficacy effect observed in US trial populations and confirmed in Sub-Saharan African populations.
Is an instance
A behavioural finding from undergraduates replicated in older non-Western samples.

Counter-examples

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance
Re-running the analysis (reproducibility).
Not an instance
Re-collecting data with the same demographic profile (replicability, not generalisability).

Editorial commentary

Generalisability addresses external validity. A finding may be highly reproducible and replicable within a specific population yet fail to generalise to other populations, time periods, or contexts. Sampling, recruitment, and the representativeness of the study setting all bear on generalisability.

References

Shadish, Cook, Campbell, 'Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Generalized Causal Inference' (2002); National Academies (2019).

Also known as

external validity · transportability

Machine-readable encodings

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="Generalisability"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/generalisability" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

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  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/generalisability",
  "name": "Generalisability",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/generalisability",
  "description": "The extent to which a study's findings extend to populations, settings, or conditions other than those directly sampled.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/reproducibility#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/generalisability",
  "sameAs": [
    "external validity",
    "transportability"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-05-21T02:22:49",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}

Referenced across the research world

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