Constructs and indicators are central to the efforts of many researchers who seek to build and test theories and articulate rich narratives about real-world phenomena. For this reason, an extensive discourse exists about their nature. Increasingly, this discourse has become fraught with controversy. Using Bunge’s (1977, 1979) ontology, I examine the nature of constructs and indicators as they are discussed in the extant literature. I define these concepts precisely, disentangle conceptual from measurement issues, and point to ways that discourse about them could better proceed. I show that unidimensional constructs, multidimensional constructs, dimensions, and indicators are all properties in general of a class of things. I also show that only three types of indicators exist—synonyms of the focal construct and succeeding or preceding properties in a pre-order of properties that includes the focal construct. I examine ontologically the notions of content validity, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and internal-consistency reliability and show their problematic nature. I introduce two new concepts, scope validity and the level of concomitance of indicators, that have rigorous ontological foundations. Together, they provide an improved foundation for assessing the construct validity of a set of indicators.

中文翻译：

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结构和指标：本体论分析

结构和指标是许多研究人员努力建立和检验理论并阐明关于现实世界现象的丰富叙述的核心。出于这个原因，关于它们的性质存在广泛的讨论。这种说法越来越充满争议。使用 Bunge (1977, 1979) 的本体论，我检查了现有文献中讨论的结构和指标的性质。我精确地定义了这些概念，将概念与测量问题分开，并指出了有关它们的讨论可以更好地进行的方式。我表明，一维构造、多维构造、维度和指标都是一类事物的一般属性。我还表明，仅存在三种类型的指标——焦点构造的同义词以及包含焦点构造的属性的前序中的后续或前面的属性。我从本体论上研究了内容效度、收敛效度、区分效度和内部一致性信度的概念，并展示了它们的问题性质。我介绍了两个新概念，范围有效性和指标的伴随水平，它们具有严格的本体论基础。它们共同为评估一组指标的结构有效性提供了改进的基础。我介绍了两个新概念，范围有效性和指标的伴随水平，它们具有严格的本体论基础。它们共同为评估一组指标的结构有效性提供了改进的基础。我介绍了两个新概念，范围有效性和指标的伴随水平，它们具有严格的本体论基础。它们共同为评估一组指标的结构有效性提供了改进的基础。