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DATA COLLECTION METHODS Repertory Grid

المؤلف:  Nat Bartels

المصدر:  Applied Linguistics and Language Teacher Education

الجزء والصفحة:  P12-C1

2026-08-07

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DATA COLLECTION METHODS

Repertory Grid

The repertory grid originates from Kelly’s Personal Construct Psychology (Kelly‚ 1955). (See Solas‚ 1992‚ for further discussion of the theoretical background to the repertory grid.) The grid measures the strength of the relationship between teachers conceptions or “constructs” and the actions and ideas which could instantiate them. The study by Lehrer & Franke (1992) exemplifies the standard repertory grid process. They had teachers explain similarities and differences between a series of fraction problems. The similarities and differences described by the teachers were the “constructs”‚ i.e. the conceptions and categories that‚ it was thought‚ these teachers used to analyze fraction problems. Then each problem was rated as to how relevant each construct was for that problem. This process‚ however‚ is not the only way to elicit constructs. Breen et al (2001) elicited their constructs from observations and interviews by asking teachers why they did certain actions in their observed teaching. Then they had the teachers rate the importance of constructs‚ for example: “Quieter students should have a chance to speak”‚ with actions observed in that teachers’ classroom such as “Accepts and encourages students’ spontaneous suggestions” (high rating) or “Encourages students to write down new items of language” (low rating).

There are several advantages to this method of data collection. Since the constructs and ratings come from the student‚ it requires less interpretation from the researcher. Furthermore‚ the data is not restricted to a few a priori categories‚ rather the categories of data are what the participants find most relevant for their own understandings. In addition‚ this kind of data will not only reveal the conceptions teachers find important‚ but which conceptions are more important than others for particular aspects of the teachers’ practice. A disadvantage to this method is that the data it produces is relatively abstract and general. Therefore‚ it is a good idea to triangulate grid data with detailed data of specific practices‚ for example‚ from observations‚ interviews or journals.