What is the Difference Between Test and Validation Datasets? - Machine Learning Mastery

We can see the interchangeableness directly in Kuhn and Johnson's excellent text "Applied Predictive Modeling". In this example, they are clear to point out that the final model evaluation must be performed on a held out dataset that has not been used prior, either for training the model or tuning the model parameters. Ideally, the model should be evaluated on samples that were not used to build or fine-tune the model, so that they provide an unbiased sense of model effectiveness. When a large amount of data is at hand, a set of samples can be set aside to evaluate the final model. The "training" data set is the general term for the samples used to create the model, while the "test" or "validation" data set is used to qualify performance.