Analysis of Early Aspects in Requirements Goal Models: A Concept-Driven Approach - Transactions on Aspect-Oriented Software Development - page 48

an opportunity to probe differences in the stakeholders' conceptual systems, to
challenge ill-defined terms, and to identify new and productive distinctions for
important concepts in the problem domain. However, this can only be achieved
if terminological interference is identified and managed. Explicit consideration of
terminological interference also helps to keep stakeholders from reaching a false,
and often too early, consensus [43].

3.1 Personal Construct Theory and Repertory Grid Technique

George Kelly's PCT [18] presented a view of “man-the-scientist”. From within
this view, people were assumed to construct a model of the world (much as a
scientist constructs a theory), act on the basis of their model (as the scientist
creates an experiment to test the theory), and then alter their model in the light
of feedback from the results of their actions (as the scientist uses data from the
experiment to modify the theory). It is interesting to note that this view shares
much of the spirit of the Inquiry Cycle presented in [35], in which requirements
models are theories about the world, and designs are tests of those theories.
From the PCT perspective, the meaning we attach to events or objects defines
our subjective reality, and thereby the way we interact with our environment.
Constructs are ways of construing the world, enabling people to respond to what
they experience in ways which are “explicitly formulated or implicitly acted
out” [18]. For example, the way in which I interact with my desk is determined
by the way I construe it — do I polish it carefully because I see it as something to
be looked after or do I put my feet up on it because I see it as a convenient resting
point? Thus, in Kelly's theory, the idea of the notion of “objectivity” disappears,
and the best we can do along these lines is “inter-subjectivity”, thinking rather
of a dimension representing degree of agreement between construers and degree
of certainty of judgment [42].
Kelly originally developed PCT in the context of psychotherapy and developed
an associated methodology, the RGT, so as to explore patients' constructions of
their social world. However, RGT has long been recognized as a content-free
method for externalizing individuals' personal constructs, and has seen applica-
tions in a wide variety of situations, for example, education and market research,
which are far removed from clinical psychology.
Underlying RGT is the notion that enables people to verbalize how they
construe certain factors within the area of interest. These verbalizations are
known as constructs , and the factors are called elements . A construct is hence a
single dimension of meaning for a person allowing two phenomena to be seen as
similar and thereby as different from a third [10]. A construct is bipolar in nature,
where each pole represents the extreme of a particular view or observation.
Kelly suggested RGT as a structured procedure for eliciting a repertoire of these
conceptual constructs and for investigating and exploring their structures and
interrelations [10].
Figure 5a shows a sample repertory grid for the media shop, in which rows
represent constructs and columns represent elements. For a greater degree of
differentiation, a five-point scale is used to indicate where an element lies with