RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

444 PERSONAL CONSTRUCTS
they wrote the name of a member of staff with
whom they worked at school.
2 They were then required to arrange the cards
in threes, according to arbitrarily selected
numbers provided by the researcher.
3 Finally, they were asked to suggest one way in
which two of the three named teachers in any
one triad were similar and one way in which
the third member was different.
During the course of the two-year in-service
programme, the triadic sorting procedure was
undertaken on three occasions: Phase 1 at the
beginning of the first year, Phase 2 at the beginning
of the second year, and Phase 3 two months later,
after participants had engaged in a workshop aimed
at enriching and broadening their perspectives as
aresultofanalysingpersonalconstructselicited
during Phases 1 and 2.
The analysis of the personal construct data
generated categories derived directly from the
headteachers’ sortings. Categories were counted
separately for each and for all headteachers, thus
yielding personal and group profiles. This part of
the analysis was undertaken by two judges working
independently, who had previously attained 85 per
cent agreement on equivalent data. In classifying
categories as ‘professional’ Kremer-Hayon (1991)
drew on a research literature which included the
following attributes of a profession: ‘a specific body
of knowledge and expertise, teaching skill, theory
and research, accountability, commitment, code
of ethics, solidarity and autonomy’. Descriptors
were further differentiated as ‘cognitive’ and
‘affective’. By way of example, the first three
attributes of professionalism listed above (specific
body of knowledge, teaching skills and theory
and research) were taken to connote cognitive
aspects; the next four, affective. Thus, the data
were classified into the following categories:
professional features (cognitive and affective)
general features (cognitive and affective)
background data (professional and nonprofessional)
miscellaneous.
Kremer-Hayon (1991) reports that, at the
start of the in-service programme, the group
of headteachers referred to their teachers by
general and affective, rather than professional
and cognitive descriptors, and that the overall
group profile at Phase 1 appeared to be nonprofessional
and affective. However, this changed
at the start of the second year when the use
of professional descriptors increased. By the end
of the workshop (Phase 3), a substantial change
towards a professional direction was noted.
Kremer-Hayon (1991) concludes that the
growth in the number of descriptors pertaining
to professional features bears some promise for
professional staff development.
The research report of Fisher et al.(1991)arose
out of an evaluation of a two-year diploma course
in a college of further and higher education.
Repertory Grid was chosen as a particularly
suitable means of helping students chart their way
through the course of study and reveal to them
aspects of their personal and professional growth.
At the same time, it was felt that Repertory Grid
would provide tutors and course directors with
important feedback about teaching, examining
and general management of the course as a whole.
‘Flexigrid’, the interactive software used in
the study, was chosen to overcome what Fisher
et al. (1991) identify as the major problem of
grid production and subsequent exploration of
emerging issues – the factor of time. During the
diploma course, five three-hour sessions were set
aside for training and the elicitation of grids.
Students were issued with a booklet containing
exact instructions on using the computer. They
were asked to identify six items they felt important
in connection with their diploma course. These
six elements, along with the constructs arising
from the triads selected by the software, were
entered into the computer. Students worked
singly using the software and then discussed
their individual findings in pairs, having already
been trained how to interpret the ‘maps’ that
appeared on the printouts. Individuals’ and
partners’ interpretations were then entered in
the students’ booklets. Tape-recorders were made
available for recording conversations between