I am attempting to set up what I thought should be a simple layout with a ConstraintLayout
I have a series of text entries, with labels whose size can change from l
My guess would be the fact that you're not really setting up a chain.
https://developer.android.com/training/constraint-layout/index.html
A chain works properly only if each end of the chain is constrained to another object on the same axis
For a proper chain, your labels would need to be part of it as well. You can probably just ditch the chain attributes and constrain the edit texts to the barrier and the parent rights.
Hope that helps.