Which is more important in Repertory Grid data? Constructs or elements?
Richard Bell*, J. Vince**, Jacqui Costigan**
*Psychology Department, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, **School of
Public Health, La Trobe University Bundoora, Melbourne
Abstract
Personal construct theory has a focus on constructs rather than elements
as can be clearly seen in the corollaries proposed by George Kelly. Yet
in the operationalization of his fundamental postulate, namely the repertory
grid technique, there is an equal focus on both constructs and elements.
Here we define 'important' as the contribution to variation in the grid
data and use the analysis of variance to examine this in several data sets.
It is shown that in many instances, elements contribute more to the variation
in grid data, irrespective of whether the ratings are made construct by
construct or element by element. Implications of this for both the theory
and practice are discussed.
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