Technique repertoire grids

The technique of repertory grids is based on the theory of personal constructs developed by J. Kelly and is used to identify interpretive processes in which a person constructs meaning in relation to his social context.

The theory of personal constructs depicts a person in the role of a scientist trying to extract meaning from his environment in order to predict and interact with future events.

Kelly argued that the process of semantic production is mediated by the personal system of human constructs, which provides the ordering necessary for processing incoming information. This system consists of a series of interrelated and hierarchically related constructs, which are a bipolar sorting mechanism that determines the similarity or difference for a given event. To produce meaning from an event, a person must relate information to one or the other pole of the construct.

Therefore, the task of the researcher is to identify the constructs that people use to produce meaning from their own world, and to try to understand the way in which human thought processes are conditioned by the events that they perceive.

The first step in building repertory grids involves the identification by the researcher (sometimes with the participant) of a certain number (usually between 6 and 12) of elements that are terms or categories. It is assumed that they are relevant to the subject of the study - it can be people, events or objects. Then the names of these elements are written on the cards and presented to the respondent, usually 3 pieces each.

Next, the researcher asks questions in which respondents are invited to express their opinion on the relationship that they see between these elements. For example, “How are they similar?” Or “How are they different?”

Then the process is repeated with the other three cards, and so on until a complete picture of how a person constructs his particular context is built. This procedure, known as the method of successive triads, makes it possible to sort the elements.

These data can then be entered into a grid that relates the elements to the constructs on which the logical explanation of the decision-making person is based, and the respondent is asked to rank each element in relation to each construct using a 5- or 7-point scale.

The repertoire grids were used in the study of strategic management, in decision-making, in the recruitment study, in personnel management, and in other areas of organizational behavior. You can use this technique to select personnel to evaluate job seekers' responses to tasks in a recruiting situation. An example of a completed repertoire grid for an applicant for the position of marketing manager, which has been adapted and simplified for the purpose of illustration, is shown in the figure. The lattice includes ten identified constructs relating to the five elements, which in this case are: “current work”, “disliked past work”, “liked past work”, “neutral past work” and “ideal work”. These elements were presented to the participant in the form of triads, and then it was necessary to identify two that did not like and explain what distinguished them from the third element.

This process led to the creation of a number of constructs, such as “career opportunities,” which were used by the participant to associate one type of work with another. Then the participants were asked to indicate the preferred pole of each particular construct, so that “career opportunities” were identified as preferable to “lack of career opportunities”. Finally, the applicant was asked to evaluate each element against the background of each construct using a five-point scale with 1 = “emergent pole” and 7 = “opposite pole”.

As the drawing illustrates, the applicant placed the elements of “ideal work” and “disliked past work” at different ends of these poles at this position, as it should have been supposed.

Fig. An example of a repertory grid designed to reveal the respondent’s perception of preferred work tasks /

* preferred poles are marked

As soon as the repertoire grid is filled, data analysis is performed. It can be interpretive or statistical in nature.

One of the problems associated with the use of repertory grids is that this technique is rather complicated both for use by the researcher and for the respondent (filling in many parameters). Therefore, some researchers suggest that the main value of this technique should be to use it as a tool to enable in-depth discussion and reflection on the topic.

The technique of the repertory grid can be used as a supplement and as an alternative to structured interviews, and as a basis for qualitative research and analysis, and as a mechanism for generating data that can be analyzed statistically through the use of quantitative methods.

Based on: A. Bryman, E. Bell. Business Research Methods. - Oxford, 2003.