A New Acronym I Give Unto You....

All computer users will be familiar with the common piece of geek-speak ‘RTMF’. It is an invitation to read the manual first. The acronym I propose requires that the text be stretched slightly to make it pronounceable, but that it a small price to pay. It is TITFA. It means either:

• Think In Terms of the Analysis (before you plan your project), or
• Think In Terms of Feedback Always.

You’ll find both of these subjects given extensive treatment in some other hints, but the word obviously hasn’t got around enough. So please allow us a brief reprise:

Think In Terms of the Analysis (before you plan your project)

I’ve lost count of the number of questions I've seen which can be summarised as ‘I’ve collected X number of elements and Y number of constructs and please will someone guide me to a program to analyse them.’ I venture to suggest that there are very few fields of human endeavour where you would spend your time, and other people’s, in gathering data without knowing how you were going to interrogate the data to give you something meaningful.

Repertory Grid is so multi-functional a technique that:

• there are many different ways you can plan a study to satisfy a particular purpose, and
• there are many different ways you can interrogate your data to give you answers.

In the days before rapid computing power was available, we grey-haired Gridders used to be adept at designing totally satisfactory projects where the tools of analysis were paper, pencil, the interviewee, and a brain. Look at the hints On Research Design, Purpose, and Analysis, and Where’s the Beef? for more information. But please, please - it’s crazy to devote hours to assembling a matrix and then ask ‘how do I analyse it?’. The question is likely to be followed by a second one: ‘how do I understand what the analysis is telling me?’ If it were a matrix of figures from any other domain and you asked a civil engineer or an opinion poll expert or a pure mathematician ‘how do I analyse it?’ the first question they’d ask would be ‘What do you want to know?’

In short: please think about your analysis method at the start, and remember that there are many low-tech analysis methods which are valid, transparent, and easier for your audience to understand.

Think In Terms of Feedback Always

Repertory Grid is a structured conversation, from which one of the results may be a numerical matrix. But the process by which you and your interviewee develop the matrix together is just as important and may be more so. There are some applications of Grid where the journey – that is, the thinking which is prompted by the process – is more important than the final destination. This is especially true when you have a counselling contract, or when the elements in your Grid are ‘unrehearsed’ - that is, topics about which your interviewee may never have done any structured reflection beforehand.

If you set up a Grid whose purpose is to explore ‘my mentors and what I learned from them’, my guess is that most people will have to think hard before producing many constructs, and that you could need three or four sessions, with time for the interviewee to reflect, before you start to mine the important insights. And your role as a good interviewer during that process is to help look for patterns, think of questions, and be a skilled mirror.

There’s a hint - Repertory Grid is a Conversation - which goes into more detail. But here is a quick summary of the reasons why feedback is an essential part of the process and the analysis:

• it’s useful in your pilot session when you’re experimenting with different configurations;
• it’s essential if the session is to do anything other than skim the surface of the person’s constructs. Most Grid sessions start with a fairly quick ‘mind-dump’ of the constructs closest to the surface of the interviewee’s thinking, but unless you’re content with this and it fits your purpose the interviewee needs to start mining in depth (laddering can help here);
• it’s polite. Should you take data from someone without giving them feedback and a chance to comment and help with interpretation?
• it may save you from going down the wrong road in your interpretation of the results. For example, Grid is often used in studies of management competencies; almost always the results will tell you about the current behaviours which are rewarded. If the organisation is changing, you need to take this picture of the current behaviours and ask the client whether these are the behaviours which should continue to be rewarded.

So - please incorporate analysis and feedback into your research design. Don’t leave them until later, because you may find yourself up against a deadline listening to the only honest answer: ‘If I were you I wouldn’t start from here.’

Prepared by Dr Valerie Stewart

Search this Site

---

Suggestions

• Download a free evaluation copy of Enquire Within here
• Email this page to a colleague.
• Post this page to: del.icio.us
• Want to know more? Join the experts at the RepGrid User Group.
• Want to keep in touch? Join our mailing list.
• A detailed log of developments at Enquire Within is at http://twitter.com/EnquireWithin. Join us there.
• Translate this page to your language? Try Google Toolbar.

Back to Hints Index