Kelly Grid

The Kelly Grid Process

[Page 923]During the Kelly grid process, the examiner first chooses one topic or domain relevant to the participant’s life (e.g., family) and creates a set of elements representative of that domain (e.g., mother, father, sibling). The participants then compare groups of three elements, determining in which way two of them differ from the third; this difference represents a construct that they use to classify objects or experiences. After identifying as many constructs as possible, the participant rates every element on a 5-point scale as it pertains to each construct and its bipolar contrast (e.g., for the construct “good,” the participant rates each element on a scale from “bad” to “good”). Finally, the examiner analyzes these ratings to determine how the different constructs are related and in what ways they represent the participant’s attitudes toward the topic.

Implications of the Kelly Grid in Assessment

The Kelly grid is considered a relatively unbiased way to assess personality, as participants take an active part in their evaluation. Many standardized personality measures contain questions designed by examiners for a generalized population, which may therefore unintentionally reflect the constructs most important to examiners rather than to participants and disregard variation among individual participants. Kelly grids attempt to eliminate these biases by allowing participants to identify the constructs most relevant to themselves.

Since its establishment as a form of clinical assessment, the Kelly grid has been utilized in a variety of fields, including education (e.g., to assess teacher effectiveness) and the workforce (e.g., to assess attitudes about management styles). When applied in nonclinical settings, particularly to elicit responses from multiple participants about the same subject, Kelly grids have proven limited in their ability to generate cohesive patterns. Compared to standardized measures, however, the Kelly grid yields systematic feedback that is tailored to the perceptions and interpretations of the participant.

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