The Ratings
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33
34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67
68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84
85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101
102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118
119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131
How straightforward was the procedure as a whole? Was it sufficiently
sensible to the interviewee for the results to be credible, or was it like pulling
teeth – clearly meaningless as an interviewing technique? Though the time
may vary a little depending on the circumstances and the reasons for doing a
grid in the first place, in most cases it’ll usually take between 30 and 60
minutes to elicit and rate between 6 and 12 constructs. Most interviewees find
it an appreciable task, since it requires some concentration. After 60 minutes,
both of you might feel a wee bit tired if all went well, and drained if it was
meaningless.
Don’t use the results, drop all further analysis, if you recall that the task wasn’t very
meaningful to the interviewee. (An hour to arrive at two constructs? Why on earth
didn’t you abandon the grid and do something that made more sense to the interviewee?)
A grid is not a test, that is, a procedure which must be completed to be
meaningful. You’ve already discovered what it means to this interviewee ^ zero,
nada, zilch!
As you worked through the grid, did you find that there were particular
elements which fell outside the range of convenience (see Section 2.1.1) of
some of the constructs? Did your interviewee comment on this, talking about
the way in which some constructs are generally applicable, while others refer
only to particular elements? If you were able to encourage the interviewee to
ruminate in this way, are there, in retrospect, any particular comments s/he
made that were worth noting?
Was it emotionally involving? Were there moments of upset; pauses for deep
thought soon after a construct was elicited, rather than during its elicitation?
The former may point to an emotional experience, while the latter may be
affectively neutral, simply a pause for thought as the best words are found in
which to express the construct. Remember the constructs in question and look
at them particularly carefully during any other analyses that you carry out on
them.
What kinds of emotion? Anger? Sadness? Regret? Impatience? Elation? What
sort of thing gave your interviewee a good giggle when s/he recalled it? And
so on.
What kinds of comments did the interviewee make during the procedure,
about the procedure? What were his or her own assessments of the process as
a whole, or of anything specific that happened during the elicitation?
Did you have to depart from your usual procedure for any reason? In fact,
overall, was this one of your more personally satisfying grid interviews, or, er,
perhaps not one of your best? How good were you?
Pause for a moment and do Exercise 5.1.