Chapter Twenty - Additional Resources

REPERTORY GRIDS AND TRIADIC ELICITATION

Constructs: the dimensions used by a person in conceptualizing aspects of her world.

Elements: the people or ‘stimulus objects’ to which reference is being made.

Triadic elicitation and repertory grids

• Select the population or elements of a particular field (elements). Take any three of those populations or elements and identify ways in which any two of them are similar to each other and different from the third. You may wish to define the field of reference for these.
• Identify the factor (construct) which makes them similar and different, and put them on a polarity of the factor and its opposite, e.g. friendly to unfriendly; trustworthy to untrustworthy, bullying to supportive.
• Repeat this exercise until you have included as many constructs and elements as you wish.
• Having elicited the constructs, decide how you will measure them e.g.:

• Polar opposites (X = positive; blank = negative);
• Rankings across the elements;
• Ratings across the elements.

• Complete the measurements.

REPERTORY GRIDS AND TRIADIC ELICITATION

Task one:

• Think of three leaders with whom you have had contact/worked.
• Identify ways in which any two of them were similar but different from the third. Repeat the exercise with any pairs of the triad until you have reached six main constructs. Write down each construct as you identify it.
• Place the leaders on a continuum for each the characteristics and their opposites, on a yes/no (X or blank) two-point location, for example:

• Re-form the characteristics to combine data from the three leaders, e.g.:

This provides a rough profile of each leader and of leadership characteristics.

Task two:

• Identify six main elements of your everyday work.
• Identify ways in which any two of them are similar but different from any third. Repeat the exercise with any pairs of the triad until you have exhausted the main constructs. Write down each construct as you identify it.
• For each construct rate how effectively you think you accomplish each element in your work:

1 = not at all; 2 = very little; 3 = a little; 4 = a lot; 5 = a very great deal

• Construct a repertory grid to portray the results, writing in the construct, the element, and the rating.

Analyse the results to see where your everyday is most and least effective. Make some recommendations to improve your work.

REPERTORY GRIDS FROM CONSTRUCTS TO RANKING 

Spearman correlation (rho) r

d = difference
S = sum of
N = the size of the population

Statistical significance has been shown at the 0.01 level.

A ‘construct relationship’ score can be calculated by squaring the correlation co-efficient (r 2) and multiplying by 100. The ‘construct relationship’ score gives an estimate of the percentage variance that the two constructs share in common in terms of the rankings on the two grids.

r 2 = (0.8788) 2 x 100 = 0.7723 x 100 = 77.23

REPERTORY GRIDS – FROM CONSTRUCTS TO RATINGS TO RANKINGS

1. Place in the ratings.
2. Put the ratings into a ranking. If there are shared scores then add the positions and divide them by the number of shared, e.g. if two people share first place then positions 1 and 2 are taken; 1 + 2 = 3; there are two people sharing this score, so 3 is divided by 2 people = positions 1.5 for each. If two people share a score which occupy places 7 and 8 then 7 + 8 = 15, to be shared by two people – position 7.5 for each. If three people share positions 6, 7 and 8, then 6 + 7 + 8 = 21 has to be shared by 3 people = position 7 for all three people
3. Calculate the Spearman rank order correlation.
4. Calculate the construct relationship between the scores.

Task three

1. Calculate the ‘construct relationship’ score for the two constructs.

What do the results show you?