Notas metaenunciativas

George Kelly devised the repertory grid (also called RepGrid) interview as a

methodological component of PCT to enable an inquirer to capture some aspect of an

individual’s construct system regarding a focus (topic/theme). Consistent with the Fundamental Postulate (3.3.2), the RepGrid aims to explore a person’s strategies of sense-making and how these strategies are utilised to envision future events.

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interview procedure that allows the investigator to obtain a glimpse of the world

through the goggles of [the interviewee’s] construct system’ (Hardison and Neimeyer,

2012: 6). Although the RepGrid is indeed structured with a pre-set layout and a topic

normally pre-determined by the researcher, it is by no means restraining in terms of

content to be generated because it is elicited from the participant. As a research

instrument, the RepGrid is in fact widely appreciated from a constructivist point of

view as the research participant is empowered to have an ample amount of initiative

and control over the content being produced during the interview (Giles, 2002). The

RepGrid is also acknowledged across several disciplines (e.g. psychology, education,

marketing and even architecture) as a precise tool which provides a mental map

depicting in some measure a person’s ways of construing the topic under investigation

(Jankowicz 2004, Bell 2011). In education particularly, RepGrid ‘promise[s] to

maintain the integrity of educators’ and students’ perspectives while revealing them’

(Solas, 1992: 205).

When completed, the RepGrid interview in its most basic and common form yields a

matrix (grid) as an immediate outcome. The grid normally has four primary

constituents which are, namely, elements, constructs, a linking mechanism (i.e. rating,

ranking and dichotomisation) between these two and a topic on which the grid is to be

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Figure 8: A Sample Template for the RepGrid Matrix

The RepGrid allows the PCT researcher great flexibility in terms of design (see Caputi,

2012 for a relatively recent review of grid-based methods). However, one of the typical

procedures we often encounter in the relevant literature for RepGrid elicitation is as

follows:

Firstly, depending on the research topic, the elements are identified. These can be,

among countless others, events, persons, objects, habits, situations etc. or as in the

present study, academic experiences. Elements can be elicited from the interviewee or

supplied by the researcher according to the nature of the research questions. The

suggested number for the elements is six to 13 but ‘as with all other aspects of grids,

there can be no hard-and-fast rule’ (Fransella et al., 2004: 55). The elements, once

identified, are arranged as above (fig. 8) to create the columns of the matrix.

Secondly, following element identification, construct elicitation is initiated. This is usually organised via Kelly’s ‘triadic elicitation’ method. It was stated in section 3.3.1 that Kelly defines a construct as ‘a way in which two or more things are alike and

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thereby different from a third or more things’ (in Fransella et al., 2004: 7, emphasis

original). Triadic elicitation is based on this core understanding about the nature of

constructs. In this method, the participant is invited to compare and contrast triads of

elements (three elements at a time), often written on cards, and asked to first articulate

a likeness that s/he construes between any two. Their response (once clarified and

labelled) constitutes the ‘emergent’ construct to be assembled under the ‘emergent

construct pole’ of the grid (fig. 8). Next, the participant is asked to identify the ‘opposite’ of the said emergent construct elicited in terms of the meaning s/he attributes to it. Similarly, their response is assembled under the ‘opposite construct

pole’. As such, through several rounds of triadic groupings, the participant continues (within reason) to formulate construct pairs (e.g. interesting versus dull lecture,

engaging versus boring seminar etc.) until s/he can no longer generate a new

discernment. Each construct pair represents a dimension along which the individual’s

outlook about the topic is mapped (Butt, 2008).

To finalise the RepGrid formation, the elements and construct pairs are linked. A

common way of achieving this is to invite the participant to rate each element in

relation to the construct pairs, each to serve as a dimension, or in other words, as a

scale. The construct pairs are generally considered as individual scales of 1 to 5 or 7

depending on the degree of flexibility the researcher wishes to bestow upon the ratings.

The participant evaluates their elements by mentally placing each on the scales

generated in the form of construct pairs. While the emergent construct is

conceptualised as the 1 end of the scale, the opposite construct is allocated the number

5 or 7, representing the other extreme of the meaning attributed to the concerned

construct. As a result, for example, while an element rated 1 or 2 (on a scale of 1-5)

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respectively, a rating of 4 or 5 would imply closeness to or full representation of the

opposite construct respectively. A rating of 3 would suggest a ‘neither/nor’ or ‘unsure’

understanding which can be co-elaborated upon further by the interviewer and

interviewee.

As with all other data collection instruments in qualitative research, the RepGrid has

been subject to criticism concerning analytical/interpretative issues as well as those of

rigour. I discuss these in the context of this study in sections 3.5.3 and 3.6 along with

the justification for the RepGrid design, implementation and analysis methods I

adopted for this study and my personal reflections on the overall experience of having

utilised the RepGrid interview as a research method.