ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the unconventionality, triangulation, and inference — are imbedded in a more general concept: multiple operationalism as a way of knowing. With educational psychologists making significant contributions, the mistaken belief in the single operational definition of learning, or performance, or of values has been eroded. Every data-gathering class —interviews, questionnaires, observation, performance records, physical evidence —is potentially biased and has specific to it certain validity threats. In trait measurement, one may define altruism by one or by a series of self-report scales. But it may also be profitable to examine extant groups with some face-valid loading on altruism —say, volunteer blood donors, contributors to charitable causes, or even such groups as those who aided Jews in Nazi Germany. The chapter explores two main points; one is the utility of different data-gathering techniques applied concurrently to the same problem. The other is the laying of these techniques against multiple samples which are natural outcroppings of a phenomenon.
