Construct(ion) and Context

In this article, I respond to Noel Card’s Methodological issues in Measuring the Development of Character. I focus on the ways in which social scientific knowledge represents human constructions of the world and the implications of this stance for the measurement of character. Further, I consider how context influences those constructions and the need for researchers to more purposefully engage with questions of construct (in)stability across contexts both within and between people. Finally,i discuss the ways in which expanding our methodological tool box, to include multiple quantitative and qualitative methods, will help us gain a more nuanced, and thereby more broadly useful, understanding of character development.