1. The OpenRepGrid Project
Software Tools for the Analysis and
Administration of Repertory Grids
EPCA Conference, Brno, June 20, 2013
Mark Heckmann
University of Bremen, Germany

2. PART I
• Motivation for OpenRepGrid
• Why R?
• The OpenRepGrid project
PART II
• Web-based interface for OpenRepGrid
PART III
• Getting started with R
• The OpenRepGrid R package
• Creating analysis reports
• (How to add new features)

3. Part I

5. General requirements for (grid) software
• Durability
• Availability
• Functionality
• Compatibility
• Documentation
• (Openness)
• Extensibility
• Usability

6. Current
situa+on

7. No grid software offers all methods of analysis
that have been devised in the literature
Source: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/misconceps/images/misconceptions_beavers2.gif

8. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 13:1–26, 2000
Copyright ã 2000 Taylor & Francis
1072-0537/00 $12.00 + .00
THE STRUCTURAL QUADRANTS METHOD:
A NEW APPROACH TO THE ASSESSMENT OF CONSTRUCT
SYSTEM COMPLEXITY VIA THE REPERTORY GRID
JOSEP GALLIFA and LUIS BOTELLA
Department of Psychology, Ramon Llull University, Barcelona, Spain
This article presents a new mathematical method (the Structural Quadrants Method)
for the assessment of construct system complexity via the repertory grid. The Struc-tural
Quadrants Method (SQM) is presented step by step, and its sensitivity to
grid structure is illustrated by applying it to five case studies. A validational study
demonstrating the discriminative power of the SQM and comparing it to tradi-tional
measures is included. Results indicate that the SQM discriminates between a
group of 11 experts and one of 11 novices in terms of grid complexity as expected
(i.e., detecting high degrees of differentiation and integration in the experts’ grids
and low degrees of differentiation and integration in the novices’ grids). The dis-criminative
power of the SQM is unparalleled by the traditional measures of grid
structure compared in this article. The article ends with a section on the distinctive
advantages of the SQM and some suggest ions for future research.

9. No framework
to support
experimental
types of analysis
Not
extensible by
user

10. The output of
most programs
does not easily
lend itself to
subsequent
computation
Source: http://www.jacksofscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/computing_occurs.jpg

11. Development by a
single person or a
small group of
researchers, each with
their own special
competencies in a
certain field of
research and often
limited time resources.
(Fromm, 2009)

12. No joint
community effort
to improve a
program:
Development and
documentation is
delegated to the
software providers
Source: http://www.kirchen-und-kapellen.de/images/content/Community.jpg

13. “the programs that are currently available
have a short shelf-life in that they are unlikely to
be updated once their creators have retired”
(Fransella, Bannister & Bell, 2004, p. 38)
Discontinued
development
once its initiators
have moved on to
other fields or
retired
Source:
h1p://evolu+on.berkeley.edu/evosite/misconceps/images/misconcep+ons_beavers2.gif

14. What to do?
• Software design that enables users
to contribute to its development
• Set up infra- and communication
structures to foster participation in a
joint development
Go
Open
Source!

15. Why ?

16. • Because I am familiar with it J
• is the lingua franca in the field of
statistics
• runs on all major platforms
• is managable by non-programmers
• becomes increasingly popular within
the social sciences

17. • provides an underlying framework for
further computations
• provides a wealth of functionality
• is extensible (GUI, 3D etc.)
• provides easy to use web-interface
options
Suitable for Open Source
grid software development

18. Part II

19. www.
.org

20. www.openrepgrid.org
OpenRepGrid
R
package
OpenRepGrid
wiki
OpenRepGrid
OnAir
mul+grid
one

21. OpenRepGrid
OnAir
A web based Graphical
User Interface

22. www.onair.openrepgrid.org

24. Building GUIs on top of OpenRepGrid
Web
based
Local
OpenRepGrid
R
package
GUI
type
PC /
Server
OnAir
More
special
purpose
GUIs?
mulitgrid
one

25. Part III

26. A five minutes
R primer

27. Setup
+
www.r-project.org www.rstudio.org

28. 38
Using R as a calculator
4 + 4 ! ! ! ! !# Addition!
4 - 1 ! ! ! !# Subtraction!
!
2 + 2 * 3! ! !# standard calculating rules !
(2-1) * (2+2) ! !# standard use of brackets!

29. 39
Variable assignments
a <- 2 + 2 ! ! !# assignment operator!
a ! ! ! ! !# variable value is 4!
!
a <- 100 ! ! # change variable value!
a * 10 ! ! ! ! !# use the variable !

30. 41
Functions
Function (lat. performance, execution)
Every function uses round brackets
rnorm(4)!
!!!!




31. “Nurse, get on the internet, go to SURGERY.COM,
scroll down and click on the ,‘Are you totally
43
lost?’ icon.“

32. 44
Help files
Opening help files
?rnorm!
!
Commands inside the function’s round brackets are
called arguments. A function may take zero to many
arguments.
rnorm(4, mean=10)!
!

33. Using the
OpenRepGrid
R package

35. Web Repository with
3.500+ packages
OpenRepGrid
Load package
when starting R

38. 51
OpenRepGrid is shipped with several sample grid data
sets from the literature. Type in the name of a data set
and press enter
boeker!
!
!
8 - martin !
george - 7 | 9 - elizabeth !
karl - 6 | | | 10 - therapist !
kurt - 5 | | | | | 11 - irene !
father - 4 | | | | | | | 12 - childhood self !
mother - 3 | | | | | | | | | 13 - self before illness !
ideal self - 2 | | | | | | | | | | | 14 - self with delusion!
self - 1 | | | | | | | | | | | | | 15 - self as dreamer !
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | !
balanced (1) 1 4 2 2 3 5 2 5 4 2 6 2 2 3 3 (1) get along wit!
isolated (2) 3 6 3 5 5 4 5 4 5 4 4 4 2 2 3 (2) sociable !
ely integrated (3) 2 2 2 3 5 3 2 3 2 3 3 4 4 5 3 (3) excluded !
discursive (4) 4 1 3 1 2 4 2 3 3 2 3 3 3 5 4 (4) passive !
open minded (5) 2 1 2 1 2 4 4 2 4 2 6 3 2 2 3 (5) indifferent !
dreamy (6) 4 5 3 5 4 5 4 5 4 4 6 3 3 3 2 (6) dispassionate!
cally oriented (7) 2 1 3 2 3 3 3 2 2 3 2 3 3 3 3 (7) depressed !
playful (8) 4 5 4 3 4 3 2 3 4 4 5 3 2 4 3 (8) serious !
ocially minded (9) 2 1 3 2 4 5 4 1 3 2 6 3 3 3 3 (9) selfish !
quarrelsome (10) 5 5 5 5 5 2 5 2 4 4 1 6 5 5 5 (10) peaceful !
artistic (11) 5 1 2 4 3 5 3 2 4 3 3 4 4 4 4 (11) technical !
scientific (12) 2 1 5 3 4 4 5 3 4 1 6 4 2 3 3 (12) emotional !

39. For easier handling we save the boeker dataset in
the object x!
x <- boeker!
!
!
!

40. Importing a dataset (textfile, gridstat, gridcore etc.)
!
x <- importTxt() # interactive dialog!
!!!
!
!
!
!
!

41. Subsetting a grid using the squared brackets
operator, e.g. extracting rows 1 to 5
x[1:5, ]!
!
!
!
8 - martin !
george - 7 | 9 - elizabeth !
karl - 6 | | | 10 - therapist !
kurt - 5 | | | | | 11 - irene !
father - 4 | | | | | | | 12 - childhood self !
mother - 3 | | | | | | | | | 13 - self before illness !
ideal self - 2 | | | | | | | | | | | 14 - self with delusion!
self - 1 | | | | | | | | | | | | | 15 - self as dreamer !
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | !
balanced (1) 1 4 2 2 3 5 2 5 4 2 6 2 2 3 3 (1) get along wit!
isolated (2) 3 6 3 5 5 4 5 4 5 4 4 4 2 2 3 (2) sociable !
ely integrated (3) 2 2 2 3 5 3 2 3 2 3 3 4 4 5 3 (3) excluded !
discursive (4) 4 1 3 1 2 4 2 3 3 2 3 3 3 5 4 (4) passive !
open minded (5) 2 1 2 1 2 4 4 2 4 2 6 3 2 2 3 (5) indifferent !

42. Creating a bertin plot
bertin(x)!
!
!

43. Opening the documentation
?bertin!
!
!

44. Changing the look by modifying the arguments
bertin(x, colors=c("white","darkblue"))!
!

45. Creating biplots of elements and constructs
biplot2d(x)!
!

46. Creating composite plots of elements and constructs
biplot3d(x)!
!

47. Detect implicative dilemmas using correlations
indexDilemma(x, self=1, ideal=2)!
###################!
Implicative Dilemma!
###################!
!
Dilemmatic Self-Ideal Construct Pairs!
#####################################!
!
By A Priori Criteria:!
!
RexSI Rtot Constructs!
1 0.52 0.63 1 balanced - get along * <==> 5 open minde - indifferen!
2 0.60 0.64 1 balanced - get along * <==> 6 dreamy - dispassion!
3 -0.35 -0.54 1 balanced - get along * <==> 7 practicall - depressed!
4 0.35 0.42 1 balanced - get along * <==> 8 playful – serious!
RexSI = Correlations excluding Self & ideal!
Rtot = Correlations including Self & ideal!
Rtot was used as criterion!
* = discrepant construct pair!

48. Writing things
down

49. out now!

50. Press
to
generate
document
Insert
tags

51. Using R markdown
• Markdown is a lightweight language to
structure a document
• R code chunks can be directly included
• Include R code between the following
tags
```{r}
# Some R Code here
```

53. Want to participate?
You have suggestions or ideas?
Just get in touch!

54. Thanks!

55. Adding new
features

57. Task
Create a function that
counts the number of
midpoint ratings

58. Writing new functions
f <- function(){!
!# some R commands!
}!
f()!
!!f
<- function(x){!
!x!
}!
f(12)!
!
!

60. !m
The Midpoint Function
idpoints <- function(x) { !
!scores <- getRatingLayer(x) !
!midpoint <- getScaleMidpoint(x) !
!sum(scores == midpoint)!
}!
!
midpoints(bell2010)!

61. Want to participate?
You have suggestions or ideas?
Just get in touch!

62. Thanks!

63. Backup

64. Literature
• Fransella, F., Bell, R. C., & Bannister, D. (2004). A manual for repertory
grid technique (2nd ed.). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
• Fromm, M. (2009). Grid Software. European Personal Construct
Association. Retrieved July 25, 2010, from http://www.epca-net.org/
repgrid/software.
• Heckmann, M. (2011). OpenRepGrid - An R package for the analysis
of repertory grids (Unpublished diploma thesis). University of Bremen,
Bremen, Germany.
• Muenchen, R. A. (2011). The Popularity of Data Analysis Software.
Retrieved March 28, 2011, from http://sites.google.com/site/
r4statistics/popularity.
• R Development Core Team. (2011). R: A language and environment
for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical
Computing. ISBN 3-900051-07-0, URL http://www.R-project.org/.

65. gridhub developers
Matthias Kaulartz
(programming)
Mark Heckmann
(concept)