For constructivism its position on the border between humanities and positive sciences is a stimulus for innovative activity in its methodology. Here it can build on the ideas of cybernetics and synergetics, of information theory and the theory of systems, of semantics and semiotics, of theoretical and applied linguistics, of non-parametrical statistics and of other new fields of study generated in the space of interdisciplinary integration. Of special interest here are the methods that allow the detection, identification and quantification of hidden factors and parameters as soon as they are the primary focus of constructivism itself. Activity and integrity are the first among the parameters that are a-priori ascribed to constructs. One of the first attempts in the pre-paradigm history of constructivism to try the constructivist idea of measuring psychic properties belongs to J.-F. Herbart. He has chosen the intensity of perceptions as the parameter for detection. He relied on activity, the first of the two basic characteristics of constructs Modern constructivism does not abandon this perspective. The rigidity/permeability of constructs (Kelly) that can be measured in the series of subsequent tests is but one example of such a dynamic characteristic. However, the mainstream of constructivism today has taken another direction connected to the measurement of another parameter that of integrity. This turn was dictated by the revolution in computer facilities that provided an ordinary researcher with unprecedented and almost unbelievable opportunities for the statistical processing of data. These enabled the realisation of the above-mentioned strategy of data reshuffling and the reconstruction of the psyche in the form of «digital moulds. Figuratively speaking, if a researcher of former times was given a million pieces to make one big image he would probably doubt whether his life would be long enough for completing this puzzle. Today the researcher has an opportunity to hand over this task to a machine that will resolve the task in a couple of minutes. Some of these new technologies, such as factor analysis, were imported by constructivism from other scientific schools. Some came out of its own workshops. Tests on moral capacities (the main topic of this book) belong mostly to the second category.
Constructivism bases its strategy on a humanities-style determination to overcome the toxic consequences of reductionism. But unlike other humanities movements it tries to achieve this aim not at the expense of achievements in computer techniques, mathematical statistics and analysis but through their more intensive usage. The binding pedantry of old science is overpowered by means of reconsidering the role and the potency of the methodological equipment of exact sciences. No more is it an idol on the pedestal of the infallibility of positive knowledge but an instrument in the palette of means for the researcher to use creatively..
Constructivist devotion to quantitative methods should be regarded neither as a result of compromise between the humanities and natural sciences nor as a return to ideals of positivism inspired by (really existing) dissatisfaction with the effectiveness of methodology of the humanities. Rather it should be regarded as a response to the challenges of the information era. The mass of information, the ongoing specialisation of scientific knowledge, the growing complexity of methods create a new form of esotericism, based on the impossibility for a mere mortal to understand the way of obtaining published data, or even more so to evaluate the reliability and consistency of their conclusions. The choice is either to capitulate to the power of scientific corporations and their sponsors or to improve abilities to resist manipulation through the methodological training of consumers of knowledge and developing institutions of independent expertise.
Constructivism occupies an active position in this respect. It is ready to struggle for scientific uprightness with mathematically formulated facts to hand, armed with the achievements of post-positivist epistemology and emancipated from the illusion of scientific impartiality, tempered with the skepticism of Poppers fallibility and relativity. But in order to win in this way its methodological level of expertise must exceed that of scientific «scribes and Pharisees» who still insist that the researcher is for the method just as man is for the Sabbath and not vice versa. Contemporary scientific creativeness should confront the methodological narrowness of the former school not with voluntarism but with methodological sophistication that includes skills in different techniques and more adequate understanding of the role of personality in producing scientific knowledge. It seems as though constructivism more than any other scientific movement is able to show that the historically determined rise of the influence of the humanities in scientific knowledge does not necessarily mean the refusal of the positivists tool, but rather a more qualified usage of it. This may be the historical mission of constructivism.
So, the constructivist programmes of psychological and pedagogical diagnostics include the following principles:
targeting the detection of hidden psychic structures (constructs) responsible for the interpretation of reality;
acknowledgment of the dynamic nature and socio-cultural conditionality of constructs, emphasis on the social factors of their formation, including the narrative identity of the subject;
interactive and flexible research strategies, improvising with the available set of methods and step by step correction of programmes in accordance with research results;
contextual interpretation of phenomena under study, aspiration for semantic homogeneity of contents and means of expression;
holistic devotion to the priority of the whole over the sum of parts, intention to represent the psyche in forms of integral patterns;
«digital, or combinative way of building and presenting patterns from discrete units which allows an analytical dismantling;
wide application of psychometric technologies for quantifying selected parameters in universal and ipsative scales;
using existent and developing new methods of multidimensional statistics and analysis for more effective operation with clusters and data sets;
focus on the phenomena of coherency, coordination, hierarchical subordination and functional specialisation of psychic structures as a source of self-organisation and development of personality.
2. ONYX: A new moral judgment test
2.1. Historical background
ONYX is a transliteration of a Russian acronym. The full name of the test reads like «Assessment of moral discernment and coherence of judgment». The meaning would be more properly represented if the word «moral were relocated and placed before the word «judgment, but this would make the abbreviation unpronounceable in Russian. What is more, the name of the stone would be lost in this case, and it would be a pity because onyx is a good symbol for the test. Like any stone our test is a solid cohesive thing but besides that it has a striped structure, just like onyx.
The idea of quantifying and measuring the moral qualities of a person cannot but cause an instinctive repulsion. Yet science has a history of breaking its way through the cordons of intuitive prejudices and instinctive protests. Anatomy is a good example showing how the once blasphemous practice of studying the human body gave new opportunities for healing. Is it impossible that results of the «anatomy of the soul» will bring forth good fruits in the future for pedagogical practice? Of course, the latter case is much more complicated not least because it is much more difficult to come to agreement about what is to be measured. A unifying theory is necessary in this case not only at the stage of the interpretation of data but at the very beginning while designing the approach. Differences of concepts about light or gravity were not obstacles to using scales or differentiating stars according to their luminosity because the ability to distinguish heavy from light and dark from bright lies in the commonality of sensual perception. Moral properties are not generally valid in the same sense.