CDA Exercise

This is a time-consuming exercise, so it is important to get started several weeks before the Elicitation Tasks class. This means doing the reading for that class several weeks in advance. I suggest working in teams of 3.

Basically, the task to elicit the items in a cultural domain, and then collect pilesort data on the items. These will be entered into a data file, and the results analyzed using UCINET.

Freelist

The first step is to choose a cultural domain, and then get a bunch of respondents (at least 20) to list as many members of the domain as they can. For example, you might choose the domain of marketing or management journals. Using any of several methods, count up the frequency of mention of each item, and then choose the most frequent items, as outlined in your readings. The journals idea is just an example. You could use fast food places, brands of toilet paper, high tech companies, types of music, etc, etc.

Pilesort

The second step is to construct several sets of cards that represent the items obtained in step 1. For example, if the domain was management journals, then you would a card that says "Administrative Science Quarterly", and another card that says "Organization Science" and so on. On the back of each card you put an ID number.

Now you ask a set of respondents (at least 20) to sort the cards into piles according to how similar the items are. In the case of journals, the respondents must sort them according to how similar the journals are, in their opinion. The criteria are up to them. When they are done, you ask them to label and describe each pile. Then you record all of this data.

Having recorded the data, you then enter it into UCINET and use MDS and NetDraw to draw pictures that represent the perceptual space.