THE METHOD OF CONSTRAINED SORTING

Abstract

The method of free sorting has been used, on one hand, to study conceptual structure in diverse domains, and on the other hand it has been used to study expert-novice differences. When used for the latter purpose, free sorting has been shown to permit a wide range of classifications and paths to these classifications. Given its unconstrained nature, sorters may not adopt a consistent approach to the task and this could lower the method's internal consistency. The influence of imposing constraints, including performance feedback and ideal category names, on a computer-based free sorting task has previously been found to enhance performance. In addition, performance feedback also increased persistence on the task. This present study sought to demonstrate that compared to free sorting, constrained sorting would yield internally consistent and temporally stable measures. Results replicated performance and persistence effects found in previous studies. In addition, constraints increased the internal consistency of the sorting task and provided performance measures that were temporally stable. Furthermore, persistence was positively correlated with performance only in the constrained sorting task.