Jankowitcz D. - Easy Guide to Repertory Grids (2004)(en)

APPENDIX 1 239

(d)What does the interviewee think?

. What kind of scale is used, and how would you characterise the ratings? It’s a 5-point scale.

[App. 2, p. 259, paragraph beginning ‘Now, suppose that what we have here is a rating scale.’]

The ratings are unremarkable: no rows or columns with a preponderance of the same value; each construct has at least one ‘1’ and one ‘5’. So there seems to be no particular bias or emphasis obvious in an eyeball inspection. (In contrast, imagine if one of the constructs had received ratings of just 1 and 5!)

(e) Look at the supplied elements and constructs

.At an initial glance, which element seems as though it received the most similar ratings to the supplied element?

There are no supplied elements in this grid.

Similarly, form a quick impression of which construct seems to have received the most similar ratings to the supplied construct.

The supplied construct is ‘best friends – don’t get on with (each other)’. At a quick glance, it would seem to have received very similar ratings to construct ‘on the same wavelength, react similarly, more predictable – more difficult to predict’: the two constructs differ by one rating point, and that’s in the rating given to element CD. It looks as though this interviewee defines friendship in terms of predictability, being ‘on the same wavelength’, in particular.

[App. 2, p. 270]

(f)Draw your conclusions

.What are the main points, bearing in mind any process analysis you have already conducted?

There’s lots of things you can say here, and they’d depend on your recall of what happened during elicitation! Some of the more obvious things are as follows:

The interviewee was open and quick on the uptake, though things needed clarifying, such as the directionality of the scale [App. 2, p. 259, paragraph beginning ‘Okay, I know this may seem a bit awkward, but the scale goes from . . .’].

It wasn’t hard work: steady effort, but not a matter of ‘pulling teeth’ and with occasional touches of humour [App. 2, p. 262, paragraph beginning ‘Ah, KL! He’s the couch potato’s couch potato! . . .’].

240 THE EASY GUIDE TO REPERTORY GRIDS

Some of the constructs were generated relatively quickly, with the interviewer jotting them down and then going back over them to obtain ratings (‘on the same wavelength’; ‘easy/a good laugh’; ‘same background as myself’; ‘honest, reliable, dependable’) [App. 2, p. 267]. With the exception of the construct ‘easy/a good laugh’ the pattern of ratings appears to be rather similar on each of these constructs [App. 2, p. 268]: is this a ‘friendship’ cluster? This is something to check in greater detail when doing a more statistical analysis (see Section 6.2).

GH appears to be rather special (receiving the largest number of ratings of ‘1’ on scales which all have their preferred end with a value of ‘1’ rather than ‘5’) and KL the least liked (receiving the largest number of ‘5’ ratings likewise) [App. 2, p. 270] Well, fair enough: GH is the interviewee’s girlfriend [App. 2, p. 263, paragraph beginning: ‘GH is my girlfriend. . . .’].

Now return to Chapter 5 and continue at

Section 5.3.3.

1.5 Answers to Exercise 5.3

(a)Core: you can’t really tell which of the constructs express personal values or are otherwise sufficiently private as to express core constructs; you’d need to do some laddering upwards to answer this question. The following constructs might be good ones to try laddering in this way:

Independent, self-sufficient	–	A conformist, group-dependent
More predictable	– More difficult to predict
Open and emotionally honest	–	Secretive, pull the wool over your eyes

(b) Propositional: there’s just the one which you could regard as propositional:

No siblings – Many siblings

and in your analysis you might want to explore to what extent other constructs (such as ‘reserved – outgoing’; perhaps ‘open – secretive’) are related, as you explore your interviewee’s thinking, especially if you were doing a study of what having siblings, as opposed to being an only child, meant to your interviewees. You could characterise:

Best friends

– Don’t get on with

as ‘constellatory’, since friendship is a construct around which most people build quite complex, rich and close associations. If you glance back at Appendix 2 (the transcript of this grid interview), page 266, you’ll see how many associated constructs tumbled out when the interviewer

APPENDIX 1 241

invited the interviewee to be a bit more specific about what he meant by ‘best friends’; and if you look at the ratings given to ‘best friends’ and

On the same wavelength	–	Difficult to predict
Easy/a good laugh	–	Have to be careful with them

in particular, you’ll see how similar they are.

(c)Affective: there are several of these, which isn’t all that significant given the topic of the grid!

Open and emotionally honest	–	Secretive, pull the wool over your
		eyes re feelings
Easy/a good laugh	–	Have to be careful with them

(d)Evaluative: these are often the affective ones, in the sense that feelings involve preference judgements and hence evaluations. However, it’s interesting to notice one construct in this grid in which the interviewee makes an evaluative statement without particularly expressing an emotion:

Good schooling, like an old –	Weaker schooling: inner-city
grammar school	comprehensive

(e)Attributional: there’s no particularly attributional construct here. None that make statements attributing causes or reasons to the actions or behaviour of the people who make up the elements of this grid.

Now go back to the very end of Section 5.3.3 and finish off the chapter.

1.6 Answers to Exercise 6.1

(a)The basic sums of differences between elements are shown in Table A1.3.

(b)The smallest sum of differences is 4, for T1 and T3; and the largest sum of differences is 20, for T1 and T4. The first pair are indeed the most similarly rated, and the latter, the least similarly rated.

(c)The trainer construed by the interviewee as most similar to herself is T3: the sum of differences is 7, the lowest of all the matches with the Self element.

242 THE EASY GUIDE TO REPERTORY GRIDS

Table A1.3 A simple element analysis of the grid shown as Table 6.15

1	T1	T2	T3	T4	Self	5
Prepares thoroughly	5	2	5	3	2	Seat-of-pants speaker
Energetic, moves about	1	2	1	5	1	Just stands there stolidly
Intellectual	3	1	3	5	2	Pedestrian
Language articulate,	5	1	4	2	3	Language shambolic,
precise, and concise						appeals to intuition
Makes it seem so obvious	3	1	2	5	3	You have to work to
and clear						understand his point
Tells jokes	1	5	2	4	3	Takes it all very seriously
Overall, enjoyed his	1	3	2	5	2	Overall, didn’t enjoy his
courses						courses
Simple element analysis
Sums of differences
T1 against	–	18	4	20	9
T2 against		–	14	16	9
T3 against			–	18	7
T4 against				–	15

Okay! Now return to Section 6.1.1.

1.7 Answers to Exercise 6.2

Table A1.4 A simple element analysis of the grid shown as Table 6.16

		Mac	iMac
1	PC	G3	G4	eMac	Ideal	5
Looks boxy and ‘standard’	1	2	5	4	5	The looks are to die for
Large range of software	1	2	4	2	1	Smaller range of software
Slow performer	1	3	5	2	5	Fast
Easy to set up	5	1	1	2	1	Difficult to set up
Good build quality	5	2	1	3	1	Flimsy build
Easy to upgrade	2	3	1	1	1	Upgrade is a dealer job
Difficult to move	1	1	4	5	5	Transportable
Simple element analysis
		Mac	iMac
	PC	G3	G4	eMac	Ideal
Sums of differences
PC against	–	12	23	15	21
Mac G3 against		–	13	11	13
iMac G4 against			–	10	4
eMac against				–	8
Ideal against					–

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(a)The clear favourite to buy, if the constructs were equally important to you and there were no other elements or constructs to consider, would be the iMac G4 computer. A wise choice as of mid-2003.

(b)The least favoured computer is the PC. It compares poorly against the Ideal because it looks dreadful, has a poor build quality, is difficult to set up, performs slowly, and is difficult to move. It has a lot of software available for it, though, and is fairly easy to upgrade if you’re prepared to bolt on various cards. All right, I prefer Macs, I admit it.

Fine. Now return to Section 6.1.1.

1.8 Answers to Exercise 6.3

The % similarities you calculated should look like those in Table A1.5.

Table A1.5 A simple element analysis of the grid shown as Table 6.16 with element % similarity scores

		Mac	iMac
1	PC	G3	G4	eMac	Ideal	5
Looks boxy and ‘standard’	1	2	5	4	5	The looks are to die for
Large range of software	1	2	4	2	1	Smaller range of software
Slow performer	1	3	5	2	5	Fast
Easy to set up	5	1	1	2	1	Difficult to set up
Good build quality	5	2	1	3	1	Flimsy build
Easy to upgrade	2	3	1	1	1	Upgrade is a dealer job
Difficult to move	1	1	4	5	5	Transportable
Simple element analysis
		Mac	iMac
	PC	G3	G4	eMac	Ideal
% similarity scores
PC against	–	57.14	17.86	46.43	25.00
Mac G3 against		–	53.57	60.71	53.57
iMac G4 against			–	64.29	85.71
eMac against				–	71.43
Ideal against					–

(c)The element which shows the smallest difference from the ideal in Table 6.16 should indeed have the highest % similarity score. All you’ve done is to turn element differences into % similarities. The extent of relationship should be preserved however you measure it!

Table A1.6 An extract from a grid on ‘Computers I might buy’, together with construct difference scores, completed

												Simple construct analysis
													UNREVERSED
				Mac	iMac					Against Against Against Against Against Against Against
		1	PC	G3	G4	eMac Ideal		5		C1	C2	C3	C4	C5	C6	C7
	C1	Looks boxy and	1	2	5	4	5	The looks are	R	–	7	3	15	13	13	3
		‘standard’	(5)	(4)	(1)	(2)	(1)	to die for
	C2	Large range of	1	2	4	2	1	Smaller range	E	9	–	6	8	8	6	8
		software	(5)	(4)	(2)	(4)	(5)	of software	V
	C3	Slow performer	1	3	5	2	5	Fast		13	10	–	14	14	10	6
			(5)	(3)	(1)	(4)	(1)		E
	C4	Easy to set up	5	1	1	2	1	Difficult to		3	10	4	–	2	6	14
			(1)	(5)	(5)	(4)	(5)	set up	R
	C5	Good build	5	2	1	3	1	Flimsy build	S	3	8	2	16	–	6	14
		quality	(1)	(4)	(5)	(3)	(5)
	C6	Easy to upgrade	2	3	1	1	1	Upgrade is a	E	5	12	6	14	12	–	14
			(4)	(3)	(5)	(5)	(5)	dealer job
	C7	Difficult to	1	1	4	5	5	Transportable D		17	10	14	6	6	6	–
		move

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Excellent. Now back to Section 6.1.2 to learn about relationships between constructs.

1.9 Answers to Exercise 6.4

Please see Table A1.6.

(c)It looks as though two pairs of constructs are particularly highly matched:

‘easy to set up – difficult to set up’ and ‘good build quality – flimsy build’ have a sum of differences of only 2. Flimsily built computers are also seen as difficult to set up. However, if you look at the reversals, C3 reversed has rather similar ratings to C5 unreversed: the sum of differences is also 2. In other words, there’s a high match between ‘fast – slow performer’ and ‘good build quality – flimsy build’.

The interviewee tends to see computers which have a good build quality as easy to set up; he also sees them as fast performers.

Now return to Section 6.1.2, step 7.

1.10 Answers to Exercise 6.5

Please see Table A1.7.

Now return to Section 6.1.3.

1.11 Answers to Exercise 6.6

(a)In Figure 6.3, which construct lies closest to the axis representing a principal component?

Construct D lies closest to the vertical line representing the second principal component. Just! Constructs C, D, E, and F lie rather close as well, varying only in the amount of variance associated with that component: C the most, D the least.

(b)Which construct shows the least variance along its component? Construct D.

(c)And which the most?

Construct A, along the first principal component (the horizontal axis).

(d)If element 6 represented myself, element 5 my partner, and element 3 my ideal self, which of us is closest to that ideal?

My partner lies closer, in a straight line, to my ideal self than I do. (Element 5 is closer on the page to element 3 than element 6.) Perhaps that’s why I like my partner: she represents the kinds of things I admire and would aspire to in myself!

Table A1.7 Grid interview with the manager of the clothing section of a department store, examining the simple relationship between constructs, showing reversals (% similarity scores), completed

Simple construct analysis

UNREVERSED

			Against	Against	Against	Against	Against	Against
1	Jane Ann Billie Ian Alma May	5	Con 1	Con 2	Con 3	Con 4	Con 5	Con 6

Con	Learns the new	5	1	1	1	4	2	Takes a while to
1	models							learn the
	quickly	(1)	(5)	(5)	(5)	(2)	(4)	features of
								new lines
Con	Too forward in	3	4	3	1	2	1	Good balance
2	pushing a							between
	sale: tends to	(3)	(2)	(3)	(5)	(4)	(5)	active selling
	put customers							and just being
	off							helpful
Con	Could be more	1	5	4	4	1	3	After sales
3	interested in							(alterations,
	after sales	(5)	(1)	(2)	(2)	(5)	(3)	other bespoke
								elements) well
								handled
Con	Awareness of	5	1	2	1	4	2	Availability and
4	sizes, colours,							choice knowl-
	availability	(1)	(5)	(4)	(5)	(2)	(4)	edge poor
Con	Pleasant and	3	1	2	5	4	3	Takes it all very
5	easy-going	(3)	(5)	(4)	(1)	(2)	(3)	seriously
Con Overall, an		5	1	2	4	4	2	Overall, a less
6	effective							effective
	salesperson							saleperson

R	–	16.67	750.00	91.67	33.33	66.67
E
	0	–	16.67	25.00	0	0
V
E	66.67	0	–	741.67	0	716.67
R
S	758.33	8.33	75.00	–	41.67	75.00
	0	66.67	50.00	8.33	–	66.67
E
	733.33	33.33	66.67	725.00	–16.67	–

D

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What would have to change to bring me closer to my ideal self? Well, whatever it is that the constructs and components represent! I’d have to move down on the second component and from left to right on the first to move closer to element 3. Hold on to that notion of movement and change, and

Return to Section 6.3.1 where you left off.

1.12 Answers to Exercise 7.1

Not so much a set of answers, but rather, a set of five categories (in boldface) and allocations of constructs to those categories which I, as your collaborator, have devised.

Reliability and character

Consistent quality – quality inconsistent

Unreliable – always reliable

A long finish – little if any finish

Ready for immediate drinking – will benefit from laying down Needs to rest and air – drinkable straight on opening

The eye

Cloudy – clear

Old and brown – young and fresh

Deep colour – colour rather shallow

The nose

Yeasty – clear of yeast

Chocolate overtones – citrus overtones

Fruity – grassy

Heady – light

The palate

Sweet – dry

Robust with tannin – gentle, without tannin roughness

Smooth – petillant

Musty and stale – fresh and bright

Scented and flowery – deep and heavy

248 THE EASY GUIDE TO REPERTORY GRIDS

Cost

Expensive – cheap

Over-priced – A bargain

Make a reliability table. Lay out these categories along the top of a sheet of paper; enter your own categories for this exercise as a column on the left of the sheet of paper; and then enter each construct (or just its number for brevity’s sake) into the appropriate place in the table, mine as they are above, yours as you decided them, all following the procedures described in Section 7.2.1, steps 4.2 and 4.3. The result should look something like Tables 7.2 and 7.3. Where do we differ? What adjustments might we negotiate to increase our reliability? I make no pretence at expertise in wine tasting! The categories are my own invention. But there should be enough here to help you to practise the content analysis steps described in Section 7.2.

Now return to Section 7.2.2.

1.13 Answers to Exercise 7.3

This is what each of your grids should look like after you have prepared them for Honey’s content-analysis procedure, steps 1 to 5. The particular example shown is the grid from person no. 8, as given in Figure A1.1.

You need to check:

(a)that you have worked out correctly the values of the sums of differences, % similarity scores, unreversed and reversed;

(b)that you have chosen the larger of each possibility, unreversed or reversed. In other words, you should have circled:

construct 1 unreversed construct 2 unreversed construct 3 unreversed

construct 4 reversed ‘knows the right questions to ask to check progress’ matches with ‘overall greater expertise’, while ‘you can talk your way around him and get away with murder’ matches with ‘overall less expertise’

construct 5 reversed, same rationale as above construct 6 unreversed;

(c)that you have identified the high, intermediate, and low % similarity scores as shown. If you were to order the constructs in terms of the % similarities, in other words, they’d look like this: