Alternative Strategies for Construct Elicitation using Repertory Grid

The triadic comparison process is the only way you can be certain of getting two poles, so there isn’t really any consistently successful alternative to offering the elements in triads. However, here are some hints for making the process as accessible as possible.

Constructs Should be Bipolar

A construct is a scale on which all, or nearly all, of the elements can be rated. Therefore it must have two poles. This may seem to be a very elementary place to start, but one occasionally sees ‘constructs’ described by just one word - for example ‘efficiency’ or ‘happiness’, usually in order to fit them into an oversimplified analysis. The reason why one-word descriptions aren’t a good idea is that:

Both Ends of the Construct Should Carry Equal Weight

In other words, both poles should be equally well-defined. A construct like X - not X will prove awkward to use when rating; but more important is the fact that you want to know how the contrast pole is defined by the client. If one pole of the construct is ‘creative’, the contrast pole might be ‘practical’, or ‘dull’, or ‘realistic’, or ‘disciplined’ ... or any of half a dozen other notions, depending on the client’s experience; and you an the client will only know what’s meant by ‘creative’ if you see its contrast pole. So it would not be useful to let pass a construct ‘creative - not creative’, nor to label the construct ‘creativity’. Ask for the other pole to be defined, with a question like ‘how would you describe the other(s) by contrast?’

Constructs Should Be Appropriate to the Purpose

You need to ensure that you are exploring the domain of constructs appropriate to the purpose. For example, you could interview a manager about his or her team members with a counselling contract, in which case you would want constructs about how the manager feels about the team, relates to them; or you could use the same element set but with an agenda of drawing up a person-specification, in which case you would want constructs about performance. The way to take care of this is with the qualifiers - the ‘... in terms of...’ questions you ask when laying down the triads. However, do be aware that at the start of the interview you are likely to get a few propositional constructs while people settle down into the routine of triadic comparisons; this is nothing to worry about. If you get nothing but propositional constructs, however, this is probably a sign that for whatever reason the interviewee is uncomfortable and you should explore the reasons for this.

So, having defined the qualities of a good construct, are there any tips for making construct elicitation easier?

Physical Sorting is Important

I’ve seen people try to short-cut the process by giving their interviewee a list of elements and asking them to look at numbers 2, 5 and 7. This doesn’t work, even with very perceptive interviewees. It really is important to write the elements on cards so that they can be shuffled around, or otherwise present them three at a time. Enquire Within allows you to do both - you can shuffle the elements around on the screen until you see them in a satisfactory physical relationship to one another.

Full Context

One way of being certain that you’ll get a construct is to place all the elements in front of the client and ask for the two which are most similar, and then ask what it is they have in common; then ask for the element which is most different on that dimension. This almost always breaks the log-jam, and if it doesn’t then you need to go back and think about whether the client is comfortable with the contract and the purpose.

Start Rating As Soon As You Can

Sometimes it helps to show the client how the constructs are going to be used - that is, to rate the elements and form a Grid. So even if you have as few as six constructs, you could start the rating process and show the first Grid analysis - letting the dog see the rabbit, as it were. And following on from this:

Use the Differentiation Process

If you’re using a dendritic analysis program, such as Enquire Within, with as few as six elements and constructs you can begin to get new elements and constructs from the differentiation process - where you look at highly correlated elements, or constructs, and ask for a new construct or element which will ‘split’ the correlation if the client sees it as unrepresentative of the truth as they see it.

Summary

So, in summary: there isn’t really any consistently successful alternative to triadic comparisons, but there are ways of making the process easier and more transparent when your client gets stuck. If none of these work, then I suggest that you probably need to revisit the way you set up the interview: that is, the superordinate purpose, the purpose for the interview, the client’s comfort with the contract and what will happen to the data, and whether you’ve got a good element set (see the earlier tips on choosing elements).

Prepared by Dr Valerie Stewart

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