The Ethnographic Explorer: Help Pages

Contents > Comparisons

After respondents have sorted cases into a tree structure, the same structure can be used to ask a series of comparison questions.
Looking at each sub-set of cases, respondents can be asked binary comparison questions.
The default process for soliciting and documenting these judgments is to proceed from the "trunk" to the "leaves".
At least four different kinds of binary comparison questions can be asked:

Questions about: In the past In the future
Differences in degree (more vs less) 1 2
Differences in kind (categorical) 3 4
Some examples of each of these types of questions are:
  • “Which of these two groups do you think has been most successful, so far?” [1]
  • "Which of these two groups have you spent the most time working with, so far?” [1]
  • “Which of these two groups do you think will be most successful over the next x period of time?” [2]
  • “Which of these two groups do you expect will present the most problems in the next six months?” [2]
  • “Which of these two groups do you plan to be spending more time with in the next six months?” [2]
  • “What is the most significant difference in the nature of the achievements of these two groups, so far” [3]
  • “What is the most significant difference in the nature of your involvement with these two groups, so far” [3]
  • “In the next six months, how will your work with this group be different, compared to this group?” [4]
  • “What do you think will be the most significant difference in the problems faced by these two groups, in the next six months?” [4]
The answers, and any associated explanations, will be added to a text box describing the sorted sub-set, which appears to the right of the tree, after the sorted sub-set has been clicked on.

Caveat: Sometimes people may not be able to make a choice (of degree) or provide a choice (of kind).
If so, simply note this fact, and proceed down the tree structure to the next binary distinction.

Ranking: The answers to all of the binary “more versus less” questions will automatically generate an overall ranking of the sub-sets and the cases within them.
This is done by sorting each pair of compared sub-sets such that the "more" set is placed above the "less" set.
When this is done with all branching points, then the aggregate result will be a completely ranked set of sets of cases, which nevertheless keeps the original network structure of the tree intact.

The ranking that is produced can be seen as a kind of inductively generated “rubric” i.e., an annotated scale.
As well as capturing more of the diversity of cases that were sorted, this scale provides a means for comparing different kinds of sorts by the same people or the same sorts by different people.
See Contrasts for more information on how this can be done.