Refining Constructivist Assessment. How to Measure the Main Traditional Indexes in Binary Grids through Formal Concept Analysis

This paper aims to expand knowledge on the application of formal concept analysis, a mathematical theory, to the elaboration of a repertory grid, which is a method designed for exploring the structure and content of a respondent’s system of constructs. After a critical reexamination of the ways in which the commonly used statistical procedures for the analysis of repertory grids can affect data analysis, we revisit an alternative methodology that is more consistent with both personal construct theory and measurement properties of the variables collected by means of repertory grids. We use a classic example of repertory grid technique and describe it according to both traditional analysis and the alternative methodology. This comparison is aimed at displaying how formal concept analysis applied to repertory grids can provide all the main measures and cognitive indexes that are included in traditional repertory grid analysis. We then provide further evidence to highlight how this proposal can be used to collect more consistent and detailed information from repertory grids, thus preserving the nature of the respondents’ data.