Page 236 - Mike Ratner CC - WISR Complete Dissertation - v6

“In memoing, the researcher writes the thoughts as they came, with no need for orderly or

linear process. The only mandate is to write what is emerging from the data. “Do not try to

make sense of anything yet. Instead, I let the data talk to me.” (Orona, 1997, p. 178)

Memos developed during data gathering and analyses are most beneficial when used

continuously to develop and arrive at progressive abstraction and theorizing (Lempert, 2010). The

technique of bracketing, or “setting aside or suspending common sense assumptions about social

reality in order to understand how it is that actors experience their world as real, concrete, factual

and objective” (Schwandt, 2007, p. 26) assisted in capturing thoughts and concerns that might have

constrained or limited the collection of data.

Comparative Analysis and Category Development

After coding a group of initial interviews, a comparative approach allowed for data

abstraction and the creation of categories. This method of data analysis aided in objective analysis

(Bryant & Charmaz, 2010). Category building came after coding and constant data comparisons.

“Creating abstract categories moves the analysis to a general conceptual and more theoretical level,

and increases its parsimony by covering a wide range of empirical indicators” (Bryant & Charmaz,

2010, p. 36). Categories are the conceptual elements upon which theory is made (Glaser & Strauss,

1967). Categories “form the theoretical bones of the analysis that are later fleshed out by

identifying and analyzing in detail, their various properties and relations” (Hood, 2010, p. 168).

Using a process advocated by Glaser (1978), I scrutinized the raw data to discern emerging codes

and categories using the constant comparative approach.

The final focus for strengthening my data that gave me a more dimensional view of

Community Conversation was analyzing survey responses given during the last Red Blue (across

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