Joseph A. Mayo
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The broad range of bipolar meaning dimensions inherent in the subject matter of other
psychology courses makes the RGT a promising heuristic tool across the undergraduate
psychology curriculum. Repertory grid is especially well suited to those undergraduate
courses, such as personality theories, where a list of bipolar constructs (e.g., rationality–
irrationality and proactivity–reactivity) forms an integral part of available texts (e.g., Hjelle &
Ziegler, 1992) and/or may be easily formulated by instructors, students, or both.
Accurately assessing students’ conceptual systems is often difficult, time-consuming,
and limited in scope (Fetherstonhaugh & Treagust, 1992). As a means for teachers to
address these concerns, a well-conceived rubric built around the RGT can effectively com-
municate assessment criteria to students. A teacher can use such a rubric to more clearly
articulate behavioral expectations, formative feedback, and the strengths and weaknesses
of students’ work (Allen, 2004).
Computer applications of the RGT are also available for classroom use in eliciting and
assessing students’ rating grids. After teaching students how to enter their own rating-grid
data by means of user-friendly computer programs, computerized grid analysis may be
used by teachers and learners alike to gain additional insights into students’ conceptual
systems—particularly in the absence of written and/or oral justifications of construct
ratings. One such computer program is WebGrid III (Gaines & Shaw, 2005), a cost-free,
web-based implementation of the RGT. Using a sample grid associated with contributors
to the early decades of scientific psychology (completed for extra credit by a student in my
historical foundations of psychology colloquium), I will demonstrate the outcomes of
webGrid III grid elicitation and interpretation. Since this example involves eight bipolar
constructs on which eight contributors (elements) are rated on 11-point continua, Figure 11.1
illustrates an 8 × 8 × 11 rating-grid display.
Using the data set depicted in Figure 11.1, WebGrid III permits different grid-analysis
possibilities, obtained from both cluster analysis and principal-components analysis
procedures. As shown in Figure 11.2, the cluster-analysis technique (named FOCUS
Abraham Maslow
Max Wertheimer
B. F. Skinner
John B. Watson
major–minor contribution
verity–falsity
utility–purity
free will–determinism
nolism–elementalism
subjectivism–objectivism
nature–nurture
mind–body
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Ivan Pavlov
Sigmund Freud
William James
Wilhelm Wundt
Figure 11.1. Sample WebGrid III Data Display. From Gaines, B. R., & Shaw, M. L. G. (2005).
WebGrid III [Computer program]. Alberta, Canada: Knowledge Science Institute. Available at the
following URL: http://tiger.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/.