Enter FACTORS
In Ingrid98 the following table method of grid input was accompanied with a feature/cell method of input to allow for large grid entry. (A "D/d" entered in the score field allowed a name look up. U/u and R/r also worked as input aids.)

This Option allowed you to enter both the names of the elements and constructs as well as the value for each cell.

As of Ingrid98.e for a time only a selected row or column with one cell at a time could be entered. You were editing directly into the input text file and this form of input was really useful for rotating columns and rows to the end for later exclusion.

Both Element NAMES and CONSTRUCT NAMES are LABELS which were six characters in length. It was therefore useful to include a full explanation of what each meant. In this example the element's explanations are:-

Englsh English Literature
Music  Music Lessons
Maths  Mathematics
Social Social Studies
Scienc Science
Classi Classical Studies
PhysEd Physical Education
Relign Religion
Health Health
Drama  Drama
Comput Computing
Art    Art
Cookng Cooking
Sewing Sewing

To see how much easier inGridX is click here.

There was only room for the name of the top score of the bi-polar construct. However during elicitation which was best done using pencil and paper it was important that the opposite end of the grading scale was firmly fixed in mind as the scoring was done so as not to get a wandering of meaning. This opposite name was usually written down as a guide and the opposite of it was again checked to see that it was in fact an opposite. At least that's what I did. Bear in mind that, when inspecting the plot, the interpretation of the meaning of the components was made by inspecting the distance of the construct points away from the center and their proximity to the component line. Because these construct points are within the same space as the elements denoted by the Star character * there was only logically room for one name. It didn't matter if the emergent construct was favorable or unfavorable it always lay toward the top score. However if there is a mixture of favorable and unfavorable construct names the only table that would give an inconclusive interpretation was the 'Section 2: Strength of Feeling' table where the sign of the 'totals' doesn't indicate what it does if the construct names were all favorable. i.e. if the total is -ve the feeling is negative and +ve means the feeling is positive. These early results were mainly used for logical checking of meanings as it is the plot that's important.

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What you should do in order to extract the meanings underlying any general grid (say for hobbies) is to find factors (or constructs) that discriminate between the hobbies (or elements). When you are trying to come up with initial terms avoid the temptation of thinking too widely. Do this by :-

1. Take a pair of elements at random and asking what is it that makes one different from the other, or

2. Take three random elements at a time and ask what is it that makes one different from the other two.

3. After doing the above for a few rows start looking at pairs of elements that seem to be scoring the same and force construct names to pop up in your mind that will pull the hobbies apart and use those.

4. When the repertory technique starts to fail in coming up with new constructs, start asking yourself about other dimensions that are important to you that you haven't yet thought of.

5. Ask others for constructs that they might use. But don't let anyone influence your meaning of the terms.

6. When you find it hard to think of new constructs for normal grids you should have been able to obtain at least as many constructs as there are elements. Very small grids are useless and very large grids are too confusing.

The inGridX system does not use factor analysis as there are no preconceived factors that you are trying to fit the data to. When you analyze a grid with both elements and constructs you could understand the second plot much better. Even though in some of my examples the elements and the constructs are the same you should know the repertory technique before trying a straight distance grid.

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There is no reason why ranking cannot be used instead of grading (i.e., synaptic frequency) probably due to Zipf's discovery of a constant relationship between frequency and rank. Experienced grid users may quickly become used to thinking in greater dimensions and are aware of a greater convergence of signal lines that impinge on the grading at hand. These impingement's could be considered noise and the user compensates with a decreased differentiation. However, the experienced user realizes that the introduction of cognitive noise sharpens the focus. As stated, before inGridX, the names of the elements and constructs could only have 6 letters to describe them. In this example of Sally's the constructs certainly needed some explanation:-

NtLern Need to learn more
Copyng Lots of copying to do
NotExp teacher explains badly
Boring Boring
Compli Complicated
StuTea Stupid Teacher
Intrst interesting
NicTea Nice teacher
Fun    Fun
MeaTea Mean Teacher
Creatv Creative
EsyLrn Easy to learn
Reward Rewarding
GoodAt Good at this subject

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Table Entry Operational Notes
1. When the cursor was in the left-hand column (i.e. Construct Name) then the following applied:-

a) If a "D" (or "d") was pressed followed by Enter the cursor went down to the next row.
b) If a "U" + Enter was pressed then the cursor went up to the previous row.
c) If an "R" + Enter was pressed then the whole row was rotated to the bottom of the grid. This was useful if you temporarily wanted to remove a construct from the grid and analyze without it. To complete the temporary removal of the construct you had to go to the ADJUST PARAMETER screen and set the No. CONSTRUCTS to one less. N.B. if you SAVEd the grid to disk with the number of constructs reduced then the extra rows would not be saved. This then permanently removed a row.

2. When the cursor was not in the Construct Name field ( i.e. under an element name) then:-

a) If "R" + Enter was pressed the whole column was rotated to the right and you could temporarily or permanently remove the element from the grid in a similar way to a construct as outlined above.
b) If a Question Mark is entered in any cell then the value that it will receive is the average of the ROW. This causes the element with the Question Mark to have no effect on the importance of the construct in the final analysis. Use this where you don't know or where a question is non applicable.
c) If "D" or "U" + Enter was pressed the cursor went DOWN or UP on row and back one column.