Skip to content

Futures in Theory

Is it a real construct?

Christopher Carpenter
Western Illinois University

If we take seriously the premise that our constructs should be approached as though they were a real thing, we begin to consider the possibility that constructs do not remain constant across items trying to measure them, across studies trying to induce them, across time, and across contexts. In this workshop, we will attempt to clarify the idea of construct consistency and the types of it. We will attempt to identify causes of excessive construct inconsistency such as the assumption that colloquial terms will map onto stable constructs, the desire to theorize with overly abstract constructs, considering a category of constructs as a construct, and cases where a relationship between constructs is considered a construct. We will also attempt to identify principles to help avoid excessive construct inconsistency.