I am currently planning a PhD project utilising PCP. The elements
are "experiences" that fit the criteria for schizophrenia in the DSM
and constructs are the meaning people ascribe to these experiences. I
will be interviewing approximately 60 Maori (indigenous New
Zealnder's) members of the community. The main aim is to portray
Maori ways of understanding experiences labelled schizoprehnic. I am
using triadic elicitation technique and have a few q's that I am
currrently trying to find answers for. If anyone can 1. refer me to
relevant references or 2. provide any answers it would be greatly
appreciated.

q's
1. Do you know of any other projects that use "experiences" (such as:
A person can see someone or something others cannot) as elements as
opposed to people, roles etc?

2. is there a standard number of elements or elicited contructs that
are required to assist with statistical anaylsis of the data?

3. How does comparing rep grids accross individuals actually work? I
know this entails factor analysis...do you run the analysis via a
programme, then look at the contructs and elements that load onto
each factor and provide an analysis of what this may mean by
including qualitative comments ( I am gathering qaulitative data
around experiences also via laddering and narratives) and ascribing a
qualitative label to this factor. I am only beginning to look into
the analysis in depth.

4. I want to include ranking in my interviews although all of the
research I have come accross provides participants with predetermined
constructs for ranking the elements. I am apprehenisve to do this as
I could influence participants responses by providing alternative
constructs than those that they give during interviews and I wonder
about the relevance of other constructs anyway. The only ways I can
see around this are to get each person to rank the elements accross
their own contructs (although this will be difficult to make
comparisons accross individuals and groups) ,or, wait until all
interviews are conducted, find themes accross the elicited contsructs
from all individuals and get each person to rank the elements based
on these themes. Any insight or comments would be welcomed.

I hope the q's are understandable.
I have conducted some pilot interview and am finding some interesting
constructs.