Q-Sort Technique and Q-Methodology—Innovative Methods for Examining Attitudes and Opinions
Florian H. Müller, Elisabeth Kals

Abstract

In the German tradition of social sciences Q-method is not well known. Q-method combines both qualitative and quantitative research and is used to examine complex subjective structures like opinions, attitudes and values. This paper presents an introduction to Q-technique and its underlying methodology. The various applications of the method for a qualitative orientated research in the fields of market, opinion and media are also listed. The significance of the method for single case studies, for exploratory cluster analysis and for a combined application of qualitative and quantitative research strategies is emphasized.
URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0402347

Q-Sort technique
First developed by Stephenson (1953), and later by Carl Rogers (1954) in humanistic psychotherapy. The Q-Sort technique helps judge self-esteem and personal growth. It helps indicate the individuals (poor) perceived self, and ideal-self.

Q-sort technique - scaling
General methodology developed to discriminate among relatively large number of objects quickly. It gathers data and processes the collected information; the subjects are assigned the task of sorting a number of statements by placing a specific number of statements in each sorting category; the emphases are on determining the relative ranking of stimuli by individuals and in deriving cluster of individuals who display similar preference ordering of stimuli. For example, respondents are given hundred attitude statements on individual cards and are asked to place them into eleven piles ranging from “most highly agreed with” to “least highly agreed with”.

Carl rogers
For other people named Carl Rogers, see Carl Rogers (disambiguation). Carl Rogers | | Born | January 8, 1902
Oak Park, Illinois, U.S. | Died | February 4, 1987 (aged 85)
San Diego, California, U.S. | Nationality | American | Fields | Psychology | Institutions | Ohio State University
University of Chicago
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Western Behavioral Sciences Institute
Center for Studies of the Person | Alma mater | University of Wisconsin–Madison
Teachers College, Columbia University | Known for | The Person-centered approach (e.g., Client-centered therapy, Student-centered learning, Rogerian argument) | Influences | Otto Rank, Kurt Goldstein, Friedrich Nietzsche, Alfred Adler | Notable awards | Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychology (1956, APA); Award for Distinguished Contributions to Applied Psychology as a Professional Practice (1972, APA); 1964 Humanist of the Year (American Humanist Association) |
Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902 – February 4, 1987) was an influential American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology. Rogers is widely considered to be one of the founding fathers of psychotherapy research and was honored for his pioneering research with the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions by the American Psychological Association in 1956.
The person-centered approach, his own unique approach to understanding personality and human relationships, found wide application in various domains such as psychotherapy and counseling (client-centered therapy), education (student-centered learning), organizations, and other group settings. For his professional work he was bestowed the Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Psychology by the APA in 1972. Towards the end of his life Carl Rogers was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work with national intergroup conflict in South Africa and Northern Ireland.[1] In a study by Haggbloom et al. (2002) using six criteria such as citations and recognition, Rogers was found to be the sixth most eminent psychologist of the 20th century and second, among clinicians, only to Sigmund Freud.[2]
Rogers was born on January 8, 1902, in the suburban Oak Park, Illinois, Chicago. His father, Walter A. Rogers, was a civil engineer and his mother, Julia M. Cushing,[3][4] was a housewife and devout Pentecostal Christian. Carl was the fourth of their six children.[5]
Rogers was intelligent and could read well before kindergarten. Following an education in a strict religious and ethical environment as an altar boy at the vicarage of Jimpley, he became a rather isolated, independent and disciplined person, and acquired a knowledge and an appreciation for the scientific method in a practical world. His first career choice was agriculture, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, followed by history and then religion. At age 20, following his 1922 trip to Peking, China, for an international Christian conference, he started to doubt his religious convictions. To help him clarify his career choice, he attended a seminar entitled Why am I entering the Ministry?, after which he decided to change his career.
After two years he left the seminary to attend Teachers College, Columbia University, obtaining an MA in 1928 and a PhD in 1931. While completing his doctoral work, he engaged in child study. In 1930, Rogers served as director of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in Rochester, New York. From 1935 to 1940 he lectured at the University of Rochester and wrote The Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child (1939), based on his experience in working with troubled children. He was strongly influenced in constructing his client-centered approach by the post-Freudian psychotherapeutic practice of Otto Rank.[6] In 1940 Rogers became professor of clinical psychology at Ohio State University, where he wrote his second book, Counseling and Psychotherapy (1942). In it, Rogers suggested that the client, by establishing a relationship with an understanding, accepting therapist, can resolve difficulties and gain the insight necessary to restructure their life.
In 1945, he was invited to set up a counseling center at the University of Chicago. In 1947 he was elected President of the American Psychological Association.[7] While a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago (1945–57), Rogers helped to establish a counseling center connected with the university and there conducted studies to determine the effectiveness of his methods. His findings and theories appeared in Client-Centered Therapy (1951) and Psychotherapy and Personality Change (1954). One of his graduate students at the University of Chicago, Thomas Gordon, established the Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.) movement. In 1956, Rogers became the first President of the American Academy of Psychotherapists.[8] He taught psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1957–63), during which time he wrote one of his best-known books, On Becoming a Person (1961). He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1961.[9] Carl Rogers was also one of the people who questioned the rise of McCarthyism in 1950s. Through articles, he criticized society of its backward-looking affinities.[10]
Rogers continued teaching at University of Wisconsin until 1963, when he became a resident at the new Center for Studies of the Person in La Jolla. Rogers left the WBSI to help found the Center for Studies of the Person in 1968. His later books include Carl Rogers on Personal Power (1977) and Freedom to Learn for the 80's (1983). He remained a resident of La Jolla for the rest of his life, doing therapy, giving speeches and writing until his sudden death in 1987. In 1987, Rogers suffered a fall that resulted in a fractured pelvis: he had life alert and was able to contact paramedics. He had a successful operation, but his pancreas failed the next night and he died a few days later.
Rogers' last years were devoted to applying his theories in situations of political oppression and national social conflict, traveling worldwide to do so. In Belfast, Northern Ireland, he brought together influential Protestants and Catholics; in South Africa, blacks and whites; in Brazil people emerging from dictatorship to democracy in the United States, consumers and providers in the health field. His last trip, at age 85, was to the Soviet Union, where he lectured and facilitated intensive experiential workshops fostering communication and creativity. He was astonished at the numbers of Russians who knew of his work.
Together with his daughter, Natalie Rogers, and psychologists Maria Bowen, Maureen O'Hara,and John K. Wood, between 1974 and 1984, Rogers convened a series of residential programs in the US, Europe, Brazil and Japan, the Person-Centered Approach Workshops, which focused on cross-cultural communications, personal growth, self-empowerment, and learning for social change. Rogers was nominated for the Nobel Peace prize for his work though the nomination arrived just days after his death. | Person-Centered Theory
Chapter Summary |
Person-centered theory has become one of the most popular theories of counseling and therapy since it developed in the 1940s. It was first labeled nondirective by its originator, Carl Rogers. The theory offered a distinct alternative to the behavioral and psychoanalytic theories that dominated psychology at the time. Rogers later broadened the concepts of the process and renamed it client-centered to de-emphasize the nondirective nature and emphasize a full understanding of all the client's dimensions. The person-centered concept evolved as issues relating to equality of participants in the relationship and a focus on the positive health of people became significant issues as opposed to a more unhealthy client status.Person-centered theory makes possible the expansion of helping situations. Originally developed as an individual process, it has since become a major group theory. This group focus has expanded into concepts popular in education. Rogers' most recent work emphasized the same concepts as ways of dealing with international conflict resolution in an emphasis on promoting world peace.Person-centered theory places great emphasis on the individual's ability to move in positive directions. Practitioners of the theory have a belief in the trustworthiness of individuals and in their innate ability to move toward self-actualization and health when the proper conditions are in place. Tied to these beliefs is the confidence that individuals also have the inner resources to move themselves in such positive directions. Finally, a core concept in the theory states that individuals perceive the world in a unique phenomenological way so that no two people's perceptions of the world are the same.The perception of clients as competent, trustworthy, and forward-moving people who have their own unique view of the world places great confidence in the individual's ability to control his/her own positive change. This confidence in the client directs the counselor to provide the conditions for that change. Specifically, there are three basic conditions needed to support an individual's natural inclination for positive growth: a genuine relationship with a relatively congruent individual, acceptance and caring from the counselor, and an accurate understanding on the part of the counselor of the client's phenomenological world.Clients who are provided with these growth conditions will realize their actualizing tendencies for growth. They will explore their difficulties and natural competencies in this productive environment, which will then lead to a clearer picture of themselves and their potential. As clients' pictures of themselves become more accurate, they become better able to act in ways that are most in line with their true self (congruence). This in turn will lead to more self-confidence, self-understanding, and better choices.The role of the counselor in person-centered theory is primarily to promote the conditions for change rather than do things to bring about specific changes. Counselors and therapists are expected to maintain a genuine human relationship in which they provide unconditional positive regard to their clients. This demonstrates their faith in clients and support of the process. Much of the work of the person-centered counselor revolves around developing an accurate empathic understanding of a client, conveying that understanding to the person, and working with him to expand and clarify the understanding and its impact on the client's choices and actions.Rogers' work initiated much research on the helping relationship and client gain. The use of taping and transcriptions to evaluate the necessary conditions of counseling and psychotherapy received emphasis from research on this theory. A great deal of innovative research in the area of clinical growth was also produced in the development of this theory. However, much of this theory has been integrated into the overall body of the theory, and relatively little research is currently being done in the area. Calls are being made for potential expansion of the theory and research into its future development. Person-centered counseling and psychotherapy has given much to the field, and professionals continue to emphasize the need for growth of the theory rather than a stagnant use of the theory's many positive contributions. |