https://doi.org/10.15446/profile.v24n2.95749
The Repertory Grid Interview: Exploring Qualitative and Quantitative
Data on Language Teachers’ Pedagogical Beliefs
La técnica de rejilla: una exploración de datos cualitativos y cuantitativos sobre
las creencias pedagógicas de los profesores de idiomas
Kenneth Richter
Patricia Marie Anne Houde
Krisztina Zimányi
1
Universidad de Guanajuato, Guanajuato, México
This article focuses on the use of the repertory grid technique as a research instrument for conducting
and analyzing interviews in the field of teaching English as a foreign language. As a demonstration of the
explanatory usefulness of this methodological framework, a pilot study was carried out to elicit second
language teachers’ tacit beliefs concerning cultural perceptions of good language teaching. Repertory
grid interviews were conducted with nine teachers at a public university in central Mexico. The data from
each group were compared to uncover possible cultural influences on participants’ beliefs. It is hoped
that this overview of the method encourages an interest in repertory grid interviews and their analytic
techniques in the field of applied linguistics and in English as a foreign language teaching in particular.
Keywords: foreign language teachers, Mexico, mixed-method approach, pedagogical beliefs, repertory
grid technique interviews
Este artículo explora el uso de la técnica de rejilla como instrumento de investigación para realizar y
analizar entrevistas en el campo de la enseñanza del inglés. Para demostrar la utilidad explicativa de este
marco metodológico, se realizó un estudio piloto para conocer las creencias tácitas de los profesores
de segunda lengua sobre las percepciones culturales de la buena enseñanza de idiomas. Las entrevistas
se hicieron con nueve profesores de una universidad pública del centro de México. Se compararon los
datos de cada grupo para identificar posibles influencias culturales en las creencias de los participantes.
Se espera que esta descripción general del método fomente el interés en la técnica de rejilla dentro de
la lingüística aplicada y de la enseñanza del inglés en particular.
Palabras clave: creencias pedagógicas, enfoque de método mixto, maestros de lenguas extranjeras,
México, técnica de rejilla
Kenneth Richter https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2072-0569 · Email: k.richter@ugto.mx
Patricia Marie Anne Houde https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3730-4828 · Email: p.houde@ugto.mx
Krisztina Zimányi https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1065-596X · Email: krisztina@ugto.mx
How to cite this article (APA, 7th ed.): Richter, K., Houde, P. M. A., & Zimányi, K. (2022). The repertory grid interview: Exploring qualitative and quantitative data on language teachers’ pedagogical beliefs. Profile: Issues in Teachers’ Professional Development, 24(2), 215–229.
https://doi.org/10.15446/profile.v24n2.95749
This article was received on May 13, 2021 and accepted on April 22, 2022.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Consultation is possible at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Profile: Issues Teach. Prof. Dev., Vol. 24 No. 2, Jul-Dec, 2022. ISSN 1657-0790 (printed) 2256-5760 (online). Bogotá, Colombia. Pages 215-229
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Richter, Houde, & Zimányi
Introduction
This paper discusses the use of the repertory grid
technique (RGT) as a credible research tool in the
field of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL),
specifically for research focused on issues related to
teacher beliefs. As an example of its use, we describe a
case study concerning foreign language teachers’ cultural
perceptions about good pedagogy. Because research
into culture is particularly fraught with methodological
difficulties (Baldwin et al., 2006), the topic serves as
a useful focus to illuminate some of the advantageous
features of the RGT.
The role of culture in second and foreign language
teaching and learning is well established, and research
on the topic is extensive. In the last decade or so, at
least four literature reviews on the subject have been
published (Álvarez-Valencia, 2014; Lessard-Clouston,
2016; Risager, 2011; Young et al., 2009). Most empirical
studies comparing and contrasting cultural views on
pedagogy (language or otherwise) have typically relied
on questionnaires, often supported by structured
interviews, using previously validated and standardized
items (e.g., Clark-Gareca & Gui, 2019; Liu & Meng,
2009; Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development [OECD], 2009; Pawlak, 2011; Schulz,
2001). These data elicitation techniques are not without
problems. Questionnaires have been criticized for their
susceptibility to common method variance, which occurs
when respondents’ answers do not genuinely reflect
their authentic views but are instead influenced by the
instrument’s design (Gorrell et al., 2011). Research has
identified several ways in which this kind of method bias
can pollute questionnaire data (Podsakoff et al., 2003).
To mitigate the inherent defects of questionnaires,
many researchers support them with structured interviews. Such interviews, however, are subject to their
own limitations, including the possible downsides of
“subjectivity, the generalisation of the findings, conscious and unconscious biases, influences of dominant
ideologies and mainstream thinking” (Diefenbach,
216
2009, p. 875). When data from questionnaires and
structured interviews are used together, problems arise
in aligning data derived from the two methods. Poor
alignment can be attributed to
the complexity and instability of the construct being
investigated, difficulties in making data comparable, lack
of variability in participant responses, greater sensitivity
to context and seemingly emotive responses within the
interview, possible misinterpretation of some questionnaire prompts, and greater control of content exposure
in the questionnaire. (Harris & Brown, 2010, p. 1)
The RGT is a type of structured interview associated
with the field of personal construct psychology (PCP).
Combining the best features of both qualitative and
quantitative techniques, the grid technique militates
against some of the weaknesses of both. First, the structure of repertory grid interviews helps mitigate method
bias. As with any qualitative interviewing method,
there is always a danger that the RGT researcher may
impose constructs or lead participants. However,
because the main role of the interviewer is to focus
and clarify a participant’s responses rather than guide
the interviewee through a series of predetermined
questions, the potential for “leading the witness” is
reduced. Second, unlike elicitation techniques that
necessitate post-hoc thematic analyses, the repertory
grid process brings the most essential themes of an
interview immediately to the fore. Finally, because
RGT data is amenable to statistical analysis, it allows
researchers to uncover patterns in participant responses
which reflect psychological relationships within the
“construing systems” of both individuals and groups
(Fransella et al., 2004, p. 81).
The following is a consideration of the RGT as
a methodological instrument. Specifically, the paper
describes an analysis of the commonalities and individuations of the pedagogic beliefs of nine language
teachers at a public university in central Mexico in order
to illustrate how the RGT can profitably be employed
Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Departamento de Lenguas Extranjeras
The Repertory Grid Interview: Exploring Qualitative and Quantitative Data on Language...
in the field of applied linguistics and TEFL. First, an
overview of the RGT is provided. Second, several
studies in the field of TEFL that have utilized RGT
interviews are reviewed. Third, literature concerning
the impact of cultural beliefs on language pedagogy is
presented to situate the subsequent discussion of repertory grid analysis. Finally, a case study is presented as
one example of how the grid technique can be used to
capture information about cultural dissimilarities in
teachers’ pedagogic beliefs and, by extension, to capture
information concerning pedagogic beliefs in general.
The Repertory Grid Technique
The RGT is a specific type of interview utilized
to analyze the content and structure of the implicit
theories that people rely on to construe reality. Of the
methodologies associated with Kelly’s (1955, 1963) theory
of PCP, the RGT is the most well-known.
Although repertory grids were initially developed
by Kelly for use within the field of clinical psychotherapy
and primarily focused on the individual level of analysis,
scholars in other disciplines have adopted its premises
and employed its methods to understand belief systems
at the collective level (Jankowicz, 1987). Kelly’s (1955)
writings on “commonality” and “sociality” explicitly
address the tendency of groups to create tacit theories
of the world. People, of course, define themselves in
overlapping ways as members of ethnicities, genders,
economic classes, age cohorts, and professional or
occupational groups. All such sub-cultures build on a
shared perspective that orders their respective “fields
of experience to provide identification and solidarity
for its members” (Kay, 1970, as cited in Diamond, 1982,
p. 401). As Wright (2004) points out, when individual
constructions are brought together, “certain underlying
collective frames of reference emerge that reflect a sense
of common understanding and shared meaning” (p. 354).
Sechrest (2009) argues that uncovering these frames
likely has more definite implications for research than
any other area of Kellian theory.
The RGT is a “two-way classification of data in
which [entities or] events are interlaced with abstractions” (Shaw, 1984, as cited in Zuber-Skerritt, 1988, “The
repertory grid” section, para. 2). Repertory grids “reflect
part of a person’s system of cross-references between
their personal observations and experience of the
world . . . and their personal classifications or abstractions of that experience” (Zuber-Skerritt, 1987, p. 604).
Using Kellian nomenclature, personal observations and
experiences are denominated “elements”; abstractions
of experiences are denominated “constructs.”
Elements are a set of events and entities external
to the interviewee. In clinical psychology, for instance,
elements might be family members. In marketing,
elements might be a set of different cars, or vacation
destinations, or cellphones. In the current research,
participants were asked to think about their past
teachers. The choice of “past teachers” as grid elements is premised on Lortie’s (1975) theory of the
“apprenticeship of observation,” which denotes the
internalization of teacher roles, identities, and practices that occurs over the course of an instructor’s time
as a student. These beliefs about teaching constitute
what have been referred to as “folk pedagogies,” a
term which emphasizes the cultural dimension of
how students come to understand teaching (Joram
& Gabriele, 1998).
Constructs, Kelly (1955) asserted, are the personal
theories that arise when humans compare or contrast
any two entities. Humans develop hypotheses based
on these theories which, in turn, are tested through
on-going “experiments” (i.e., interactions) with their
environments (Beail, 1985; Fromm, 2004; Hardison &
Neimeyer, 2012). In other psychological approaches,
these theories may be variously referred to as personality,
attitudes, habits, reinforcement history, information
coding system, psychodynamics, concepts, or philosophy
(Fransella et al., 2004). Borrowing Jerrard’s (1998)
denotation, in this paper constructs are defined as a
“basic dimension of appraisal” (p. 41).
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Richter, Houde, & Zimányi
The constructs in Kelly’s (1955) model are always
bipolar. When elicited during an RGT interview, the two
poles are designated the emergent pole and the implicit
pole. The emergent pole refers to the original comparison
or contrast given by the participant; the implicit pole is
elicited by asking the participant to provide what they
believe to be the semantic opposite of the emergent
pole. Because each construct is bipolar, it is possible for
participants to use a numerical scale to evaluate each
element. That is, each completed grid can be thought
of as a “personal differential questionnaire” (Tomico et
al., 2009, p. 57) that participants can use to numerically
rate elements in terms of constructs, allowing for a
variety of statistical analyses to be conducted.
The Repertory Grid in TEFL Research
Since its development in the 1950’s, the repertory
grid has been adopted by a wide range of researchers
with interests outside its original psychotherapeutic
context (King & Horrocks, 2010). Indeed, the RGT has
proven to be such a useful instrument for eliciting and
analyzing verbal commentaries that the technique is
often dissociated from its underlying theory. Although
scholars within the field of PCP warn against decoupling repertory grid interviews from Kelly’s theories
of personality (Beail, 1985; Denicolo & Pope, 1997),
researchers outside the area of PCP have found repertory grids to be a practical, stand-alone data collection
technique: Repertory grids have been employed in more
than 2,000 books, book chapters, research articles, and
academic work in a wide variety of fields (Luque et al.,
1999; Neimeyer et al., 1990; Saúl et al., 2012), with an
average of 100 works utilizing the technique published
each year (Saúl et al., 2012).
In the field of general education, there are numerous
studies of teacher development and cognition based
on repertory grid data. However, only a handful of
investigations in the field of TEFL have utilized the
RGT. One of the first of these was a study carried out
by Bodycott (1997), who investigated conceptions of
218
the “ideal teacher” among 12 preservice English language instructors in Singapore. The author supplied
the grid elements, all of which were based on social
and professional identities such as “self,” “past self,”
“ideal self,” “mother,” “father,” “school principal,” and
“language teacher.” Bodycott reported that the research
participants’ opinions about “good” teaching emphasized
the personal traits and values of language instructors
rather than pedagogic knowledge.
Sendan and Roberts (1998) used the RGT to investigate the complexities of change in student cognition.
Arguing that much of the teacher cognition literature
defines thinking in terms of one-dimensional “lists”
of variables, they instead approached student-teacher
cognition as a dynamic developmental process. Through
a diachronic, statistical analysis of one student-teacher’s
repertory grid data, the authors found that the participant’s beliefs about effective teaching were indeed
dynamic, changing not only in terms of content but
also in terms of structure.
Murray’s longitudinal investigation (2003, as cited
in Borg, 2006) focused on the development of language
awareness among preservice teachers. Over the course
of a seven-month class in English as a second language
(ESL) pedagogy, participants were interviewed three
times. Murray provided samples of learner language,
native-speaker language, and coursebook language and
asked his research participants to discuss similarities
and differences between them. Murray’s data analysis
was unconventional: Although he used a repertory grid
elicitation technique, actual grids were not constructed.
Instead, the researcher analyzed interview transcripts
and located constructs within them. In subsequent interviews, he then tracked how these constructs changed
and were supplanted by others.
Yaman (2008) relied on repertory grid interviews to
follow a single English language teacher’s development
over the course of a one-year, in-service training program.
The author emphasized that the RGT had great potential
as a tool for reflection, concluding that the technique
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The Repertory Grid Interview: Exploring Qualitative and Quantitative Data on Language...
allowed her to “gain access to and monitor changes
in the teacher’s personal theories with relatively less
imposition of the researcher’s own construction of the
issues than would have been possible with methods such
as observations, questionnaires or checklists” (p. 38).
Kozikoglu (2017), in an RGT study of 36 prospective
teachers in Turkey, aimed to identify their cognitive
constructs regarding ideal teacher qualifications. Six
participants were selected from the department of foreign
language education. In all, 356 cognitive constructs were
produced. The author concluded that, according to the
study, “ideal teachers should have qualifications such
as humaneness, joviality and personal values as well
as professional knowledge (content knowledge and
pedagogical skills)” (p. 72).
More recently, Eren (2020) investigated the intercultural views of three instructors from Germany, Syria,
and Iran regarding the concept of teacher autonomy.
Eren gathered data using repertory grid interviews
along with traditional semi-structured interviews and
classroom observations. Findings suggested that the
teachers understood “teacher autonomy” in similar
ways, notwithstanding their national origins.
The Impact of Cultural Beliefs
on Language Pedagogy
The widely acknowledged idea that socio-cultural
forces influence teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and professional practices is encapsulated in the term situated
cognition (Brown et al., 1989). This concept is based on
the notion that knowledge is always developed within a
given context. Teaching and learning are never neutral
acts: They are inseparable from their socio-cultural
settings (Brown et al., 1989; Lave, 1988; Lave & Wenger,
1991). Through classroom activities, teacher models, and
peer influence, students are apprenticed into a particular
culture of learning that reflects wider cultural assumptions (Lave, 1988). Teachers are likewise enculturated.
The anthropologist Conrad Kottak (2004, as cited in
Read et al., 2009) defines enculturation as
the process where the culture that is currently established
teaches an individual the accepted norms and values of
the culture in which the individual lives. The individual
can become an accepted member and fulfill the needed
functions and roles of the group. Most importantly, the
individual knows and establishes a context of boundaries
and accepted behavior that dictates what is acceptable
and not acceptable within the framework of that society.
It teaches the individual their role within society as well
as what is accepted behavior within that society and
lifestyle. (p. 52)
There is considerable empirical evidence to support
these ideas. For instance, the OECD’s Teaching and
Learning International Survey (2009) compared
perspectives on pedagogy in 16 OECD and seven partner
countries. Findings indicated that the influence of
culture and pedagogical traditions on teachers’ beliefs
and practices is “exceptionally high” (p. 96). Schleicher
(2018)—summarizing the OECD’s most recent 2018
survey of teaching and learning—reaffirmed the cultural
dimensions of teaching, noting that “the meaning of
teacher professionalism varies significantly across
countries, and often reflects cultural and historical
differences” (p. 29).
Language education, like all education, is a cognitively situated activity. Whether overtly or covertly,
a process of “cultural scripting” (Stigler & Hiebert,
1999) encourages both teacher and students to conform
to the socio-cultural practices of their educational
environment.
How socio-cultural forces influence teacher and
student perspectives on foreign language pedagogy
has been a fertile area of study in TEFL research (see,
for instance, Amiryousefi, 2015; Widiati & Cahyono,
2006; Yoo, 2014). Indeed, the large number of such
studies supports Atkinson’s (1999) assertion that
“except for language, learning, and teaching, there is
no more important concept in the field of [TESOL]
than culture” (p. 625).
Profile: Issues Teach. Prof. Dev., Vol. 24 No. 2, Jul-Dec, 2022. ISSN 1657-0790 (printed) 2256-5760 (online). Bogotá, Colombia. Pages 215-229
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Richter, Houde, & Zimányi
Given the sheer volume of research focused on
questions of culture, it is remarkable that there are
relatively few studies in the field of TEFL devoted to
cross-cultural comparisons. The exception here is the
research contrasting Chinese and Western beliefs and
attitudes about EFL pedagogy (Anderson, 1993; Burnaby &
Sun, 1989; Clark-Gareca & Gui, 2019; Degen & Absalom,
1998; Hong & Pawan, 2015; Rao, 2013; Shi, 2009; Simpson,
2008; Stanley, 2013; Zhang, 2016; Zhou et al., 2011). Other
comparative studies, however, are relatively rare (Aubrey,
2009; Can et al., 2011; Liu, 2004; Pawlak, 2011; Richter
& Lara-Herrera, 2017; Rubenstein, 2006; Schulz, 2001).
Method
This exploratory study is concerned with the tacit
beliefs of foreign language teachers concerning cultural
perceptions of good language teaching. It is offered as
an example of the usefulness of the RGT, both in terms
of the productiveness of elicitation and the utility of
subsequent analysis.
Participants
Possible participants were identified through
convenience sampling. Nine second and foreign
language teachers working at a university in central
Mexico ultimately agreed to take part in the study: three
Spanish language teachers, three French teachers, and
three English teachers. A larger pool of participants
was deemed unnecessary given that this article aims
to illuminate the RGT as a methodological instrument
rather than to delve deeply into matters of culture, per se.
Procedure
The participants were interviewed individually. Grid
elements were chosen by the participants, who were asked
to think of six of their past teachers: an excellent language
teacher, an excellent content teacher in another field,
an average language teacher, an average teacher in any
subject, a poor language teacher, and a poor teacher in
any subject. They were also asked to think of themselves at
220
three moments during their teaching career: in the past, in
the present, and in the future. Through researcher-directed
dyadic elicitation, the participants were subsequently
asked to compare and contrast the elements they had
chosen, thus generating a list of personal constructs. At the
intersection of each element and construct, participants
were asked to provide a numerical rating, representing an
evaluation of each element in terms of its corresponding
construct’s emergent and implicit poles.
To analyze any group as a whole, it is necessary
to homogenize individual responses. This is generally
achieved by pooling all the participants’ constructs
and categorizing them according to the meanings they
express. There are essentially two ways of going about
this. The first, referred to as “bootstrapping,” consists of
analyzing the collected constructs systematically and
identifying the most salient connections or themes. The
second method requires that the researcher preselect
a set of constructs, generally one encountered in the
literature or one that is theoretically based (Jankowicz,
2004). To overcome the highly idiosyncratic nature of
the results and to create a standardized classification
scheme, we employed the second option. Constructs
were placed into a number of categories suggested by
Dunkin (1995). Dunkin’s taxonomy breaks teaching
into eight distinct dimensions: teaching as structuring
learning, as motivating learning, as encouraging
activity and independence in learning, as establishing
an atmosphere conducive to learning, as experience,
as content knowledge, as pedagogic knowledge, and
as personal/professional orientation. The resulting
categorizations allowed for both inter- and intra-grid
analyses of the constructs elicited from the English,
Spanish, and French groups. While sacrificing some
detail in each of the individual grids, this system allowed
for the identification of trends common to all of them
(Jankowicz, 2004).
We analyzed the categories in terms of three
dimensions: (a) dominance, (b) importance, and (c)
semantic similarity. Dominance refers to the degree
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The Repertory Grid Interview: Exploring Qualitative and Quantitative Data on Language...
of inter-group agreement about the importance of a
given construct category. If, for instance, constructs
associated with “structured learning” were elicited
more often from one group than another, one could
plausibly conclude that structured learning is more
important to the first group than to the second. In
PCP, elicitation order is used to measure a construct’s
importance to a given participant (Tomico et al., 2009).
An importance index was created by calculating the
normalized order in which constructs were elicited
(with constructs reported first being considered more
important to the participant than those reported
later). Finally, semantic similarity can be computed
using hierarchal cluster analysis, which in turn can be
visually represented by a dendrogram of taxonomic
relationships. Such an analysis is useful because it
provides a way to understand the extent to which
given elements and constructs are seen as similar in
meaning, both inter- and intra-personally.
was 11. In all, 1,770 pieces of data (i.e., all emergent and
implicit constructs plus the participants’ ratings on the
constructs) were elicited.
Dominance and
Importance Measures
Table 1 displays the relative percentages (i.e.,
dominance) for each construct category as well as
the elicitation order (i.e., importance) for the English,
Spanish, and French teachers. The elicitation order
index was derived by calculating the mean of the order
of all constructs within each construct category. Based
on the total number of constructs generated, the order
of the constructs was normalized for each participant
to a range of 0 to 1: a 0 value reflects the first construct
that was elicited, and a 1 value reflects the last construct.
A standard normalization formula was used:
X normalized = (b–a) * [ (x–y) / (z–y) ] + a
This can be reduced to
normalized order = order rank – 1 / total constructs – 1
Findings and Discussion
In all, the nine participants generated 177 constructs.
The average number of constructs among the English
teachers was 21; among the Spanish teachers, the average
was 26; and among the French teachers, the average
The standard deviations (which are critical for
estimating the homogeneity of a category of constructs
in the relative order) are included in parentheses after
each rank.
Table 1. Dominance and Importance Measures
Dominance
(relative percentage %)
Construct categories
Content knowledge
Encourages activity & independence
Establishes atmosphere conducive to
learning
Experience
Motivates learning
Pedagogic knowledge
Personal / professional orientation
Structures learning
English Spanish French
8
6
3
3
6
0
Importance
(elicitation order)
English
.20 (.14)
.80 (.00)
Spanish
.41 (.21)
.77 (.10)
French
.80 (.00)
-
31
24
18
.51 (.50)
.63 (.40)
.49 (.73)
1
8
3
26
20
0
12
20
25
7
3
9
3
49
15
.61 (.00)
.40 (.29)
.23 (.27)
.57 (.42)
.50 (.32)
.44 (.51)
.29 (.47)
.53 (.52)
.63 (.14)
.50 (.00)
.08 (.10)
.64 (.00)
.62 (.23)
.64 (.14)
Note. The dominance of each category (measured by the relative percentage of total constructs) and the importance of each category
(measured by the elicitation order) for the English, Spanish, and French teachers. Standard deviations are displayed in parentheses.
Profile: Issues Teach. Prof. Dev., Vol. 24 No. 2, Jul-Dec, 2022. ISSN 1657-0790 (printed) 2256-5760 (online). Bogotá, Colombia. Pages 215-229
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Richter, Houde, & Zimányi
The dominance analysis highlighted major alignments and disjunctures between the three groups.
For instance, the relative percentage measures demonstrate that all of the teachers regarded the personal
and professional aspects of their work as significant.
Constructs in this category, which included “willingness to grow,” “ability to adapt,” and “dedication,”
demonstrated a commitment towards instructional
excellence and professional development. The French
teachers emphasized this aspect of their work: almost
50% of their constructs had to do with their personal
and professional orientation. Overall, all three groups
shared beliefs about the importance of establishing
a classroom atmosphere conducive to learning. The
English and French teachers were alike in that both
groups generated a significant number of constructs
having to do with structuring learning, such as careful
planning, organization, and assessment (20% and 15%
of total constructs, respectively). The Spanish teachers
placed a great deal of emphasis on the importance
of pedagogic knowledge (20% of the total constructs
generated by this group).
These findings are enhanced by the nuance
afforded by an analysis of the importance indices.
While the English teachers offered the largest number
of constructs related to establishing an atmosphere
conducive to learning, according to the elicitation
index, content and pedagogic knowledge may be
more important to them (these constructs were
ranked as 1 and 2, respectively). The agreement
between the English teachers regarding their rankings, as reflected by the low standard deviation scores,
adds credence to this claim. Pedagogic knowledge
was similarly important to the Spanish teachers.
Interestingly, the relative percentage here is more
in line with the salience of the construct. That is
to say, the Spanish teachers both created a high
number of constructs associated with pedagogic
knowledge and rated these constructs as the most
222
important to their practice. Finally, for the French
group, although personal and professional orientation was the most “replete” category (comprised of
49 constructs), “motivating learning” was ranked
as the most important construct.
Semantic Similarity Measures
Semantic similarity is a metric defined by how
closely or remotely an individual perceives the
distance between the meanings of two (or more)
units of language, concepts, or instances (Harispe
et al., 2015). When a hierarchical cluster analysis
of correlations is applied to the numerical data in a
repertory grid, the more that constructs or elements are
alike, the closer they approximate a score of 100, which
would signify a perfect correlation. Thus, in Figure
1, the construct categories “establish an atmosphere
conducive to learning” and “personal and professional
orientation” are closely linked (a 95.7% match). This
suggests that for the English teachers, an instructor
who makes students feel secure, is approachable, and
“nurturant” (Dunkin, 1995, p. 24) and is probably also
a teacher who tends to integrate their personal and
professional identities (Sabirova et al., 2016). For the
English teachers, content knowledge and experience
were also highly correlated (94.3% match). In terms
of elements, the English teachers viewed being a
language teacher in roughly the same terms as being
any other type of teacher (94.4% match).
Figure 2 shows that the Spanish teachers also
believed there to be a strong connection between
establishing an atmosphere conducive to learning
and an instructor’s personal and professional orientation (94.4% match). In comparison to the English
participants, the Spanish group, however, viewed
the pedagogic characteristics of language teachers
as being relatively distinct from the characteristics
of the non-language teachers they had identified as
elements (85% match).
Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Departamento de Lenguas Extranjeras
The Repertory Grid Interview: Exploring Qualitative and Quantitative Data on Language...
Figure 1. Cluster Analysis of English Teachers’ Construct Categories and Supplied Elements
100 90 80
encouranging activity & independence
pedagogic knowlegde
structuring learning
establish atmosphere conductive to learning
personal / professional orientation
motivating learning
content knowlegde
experience
15
10
21
17
16
10
10
10
15
25
16
15
15
10
14
10
35
25
25
18
13
10
10
10
35
40
45
26
21
32
30
40
35
30
36
20
18
22
22
30
15
30
32
29
30
38
28
30
15
30
46
38
45
52
60
60
70
65
63
63
64
68
57
50
70
50
53
59
60
66
20
20
70
70
70
70
70
70
70
70
100 90 80 70 60
a poor teacher
a poor sec. lang. teacher
an average teacher
an average sec. lang. teacher
you as you are now
you as you could be
you as you used to be
a great sec. lang. teacher
a great teacher
Figure 2. Cluster Analysis of Spanish Teachers’ Construct Categories and Supplied Elements
100 90
structuring learning
content knowlegde
establish atmosphere conductive to learning
personal / professional orientation
pedagogic knowlegde
encouranging activity & independence
motivating learning
experience
13
10
10
10
10
10
10
?
16
15
14
12
12
12
11
?
15
16
12
10
12
17
12
?
26
25
15
11
12
12
16
?
35
30
24
14
17
20
26
?
30
30
33
35
40
36
38
?
40
35
39
45
46
47
50
?
51
50
45
49
54
52
53
?
53
45
50
50
58
57
52
?
70
70
70
70
70
70
70
70
100 90 80 70 60
a poor teacher
a poor sec. lang. teacher
an average teacher
an average sec. lang. teacher
you as you used to be
you as you are now
a great sec. lang. teacher
a great teacher
you as you could be
The French teachers viewed both the construct
categories and the supplied elements as semantically
independent units with relatively little overlap between
them. As seen in Figure 3, for this group, the concepts
“establishing an atmosphere conducive to learning” and
“personal and professional orientation” were also the
most semantically similar. However, unlike the English
and Spanish groups, these concepts only matched at
a relatively low 89.6%. For the French instructors, a
“great teacher” and a “great second language teacher”
only matched at approximately 75%, suggesting that
for this group, language teachers possess several
characteristics and beliefs that distinctly separate
them from teachers in other fields. To understand
these differences better, follow-up interviews would
have to be conducted.
Profile: Issues Teach. Prof. Dev., Vol. 24 No. 2, Jul-Dec, 2022. ISSN 1657-0790 (printed) 2256-5760 (online). Bogotá, Colombia. Pages 215-229
223
Richter, Houde, & Zimányi
Figure 3. Cluster Analysis of French Teachers’ Construct Categories and Supplied Elements
100 90 80 70
encouranging activity & independence
experience
structuring learning
personal / professional orientation
establish atmosphere conductive to learning
content knowlegde
motivating learning
pedagogic knowlegde
?
10
10
16
10
10
23
20
?
10
32
30
18
10
13
30
?
30
20
26
20
20
30
30
?
30
45
25
20
20
13
50
?
40
42
32
24
40
46
30
?
70
35
35
32
40
33
20
?
50
53
49
46
70
40
20
?
50
60
50
54
60
33
40
?
10
32
53
44
60
53
70
70
70
70
70
70
70
70
70
100 90 80 70 60
an average teacher
a poor sec. lang. teacher
a poor teacher
you as you used to be
an average sec. lang. teacher
a great sec. lang. teacher
you as you are now
a great teacher
you as you could be
Conclusion
The repertory grid is an interview technique that
explores the structure and content of the implicit theories
people rely upon to construe their experiences. As
mentioned in the introduction, the technique merges the
strengths of both qualitative and quantitative approaches
in a way that mitigates a number of methodological
difficulties associated with other qualitative, quantitative,
and mixed-methods procedures.
In this study, nine language teachers at a public
university in central Mexico were interviewed about
their conceptions of “good” language pedagogy. The
dominance and importance measures demonstrate
that all the language teachers viewed the personal and
professional aspects of their work as important. All
three groups shared beliefs about the importance of
establishing a classroom atmosphere conducive to
learning. Both the English and French teachers generated
a significant number of constructs having to do with
structuring learning. In addition, the Spanish teachers
placed a high emphasis on the importance of pedagogic
knowledge. Findings like this demonstrate the usefulness
of the technique in uncovering tacit, pedagogical beliefs,
a knowledge of which would, of course, be useful in
224
second language teacher education, particularly in terms
of opportunities for self-reflection and monitoring
changes in pedagogical perspectives over time.
As this research was premised on creating an
example of how repertory grids function, the study
must be considered exploratory and illustrative. And
as with any such study, the results must be heavily
caveated. In the present case, first, the concept of
culture is infamously “messy” (Fives & Buehl, 2012;
Pajares, 1992) and thus would have to be carefully
disambiguated were this research to advance beyond its
current state. Second, there are unresolved questions
regarding sample size. The literature is notoriously
unresolved as to requisite sample sizes in repertory grid
investigations, with different researchers advocating
sample sizes of between six and 25 to approximate
the universe of meaning within a given population
(Dillon & McKnight, 1990; Dunn, 1986; Ginsberg,
1989; Hassenzahl & Trautmann, 2001; Heckmann &
Burk, 2017; Moynihan, 1996; Tan & Hunter, 2002). In
any follow-on study, the question of proper sample
size would have to be carefully addressed. Lastly,
were the research to be carried further, whether to
rely on pre-formulated categories or to undertake
Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Departamento de Lenguas Extranjeras
The Repertory Grid Interview: Exploring Qualitative and Quantitative Data on Language...
conceptual content analysis is a question that would
need to be resolved.
These methodological concerns, however, are
largely tangential to the purpose of the current article,
which offered a small-scale study to elucidate how RGT
interviews are conducted and to present a few of the
ways in which the resultant data can be analyzed. As
should be apparent, the RGT’s usefulness is in no way
limited to the topics explored in this article. It is a data
elicitation and analysis approach suitable for any study
focused on teacher, student, or shareholder beliefs. It
allows for comparisons of beliefs between a variety of
people on a wide range of topics. In sum, repertory grids
are distinguished for their ease of use, their utility in
precisely defining concepts without the need for post
hoc analyses, their usefulness in uncovering connections
between seemingly dissimilar concepts, their ability to
restrain researcher bias, their high degree of validity, and
their amenability to several types of statistical analysis
grounded in participants’ qualitative and idiosyncratic
views of the world.
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About the Authors
Kenneth Richter works at the University of Guanajuato as an associate professor in the Language
Department’s second language teacher education program. He has also taught at the Regional English
Language Centre (RELC) in Singapore and served as an English Language Fellow in Argentina for the U.S.
Department of State.
Patricia Marie Anne Houde is a professor in the Language Department at the University of Guanajuato
and works in language teacher education programs. She has taught French and English as foreign languages in
Canada and Mexico. She holds a PhD in Educational Studies in Language Acquisition from McGill University.
Krisztina Zimányi currently works at the Departamento de Lenguas, Universidad de Guanajuato. Krisztina
does research in translation studies, EFL/TESOL teacher training, discourse analysis, and psycholinguistics.
Profile: Issues Teach. Prof. Dev., Vol. 24 No. 2, Jul-Dec, 2022. ISSN 1657-0790 (printed) 2256-5760 (online). Bogotá, Colombia. Pages 215-229
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