So Many Data, So Much Time: Living with Grounded Theory in a Rhetorical Autoethnography

Abstract

This chapter explores the challenges and rewards of grounded theory research methods carried out with too many data. In the context of a rhetorical autoethnography of family writing on which I am currently working, I discuss the special emotional resources (companionship, faith, and hope) necessary to persevere through the grueling and long-term challenges (loneliness, worries, and doubts) of this approach to qualitative research. The strategy of open coding receives careful attention, as it is the element of grounded theory methods that requires the most time and patience to carry out correctly. Tensions arise between the patient self-discipline by which the researcher resists reaching conclusions too soon (so as to preserve the inductive and illuminating character of the findings) and the yearning the researcher is likely to feel to arrive at some meaningful conclusions before those conclusions have been fully earned and validated. There is also discussion here of how quantitative filtering and sifting of qualitative codes helps to validate the coding process. I finish the chapter by sharing with readers some of my coding discoveries in my analysis of my family writing archive.

As soon as we go into the field or turn on an instrument, we find ourselves drowning in a sea of data. (Bruno Latour, 1999, Pandora’s Hope, Harvard University Press, p. 39)

Appendix

Research Methods in Composition Studies (Eng. 497)

Professor Bob Broad

Assignment Sheet for the Eng. 497 Teeny Tiny Tidy Pilot Study (Abbreviation: T3P) Assignment

The goal of this assignment (The “Teeny Tiny Tidy Pilot Study” or “T3P”) is the same as the goal of this course as a whole: to give you theoretical and practical knowledge of how to conduct empirical (vs. textual) research in English Studies.

• In the first couple of weeks of the course, invest significant time and energy in sketching two or three versions of your T3P. Consider what you are curious about in the field of English Studies; what do you want to learn about? Research is a rhetorical (and political, and economic, etc.) act, so explore a range of possible rhetorical situations into which you want to enter as a researcher. That is, consider a variety of topics, purposes, audiences, forums, genres, media/technologies, and exigencies (kairos) for your research.

• Once you have two or three well-developed sketches of research projects, write out at least one research question for each possible project. Your research question(s) should clearly and succinctly answer the question What are you trying to learn (about)?

• Once you have developed a few possible projects this far, go ahead and choose the one that seems to you most promising within the confines of what is possible to accomplish in one semester-long graduate course. You should get input from the professor and some of your peers on this choice.

• Draft an “IRB Protocol Submission Form” and appropriate accompanying IRB documents for your study. Though I (Bob Broad) and your classmates will likely co-author a “batch protocol” to cover most of the studies carried out for Eng. 497, your work drafting your own individual IRB materials will help you understand your own study – as well as the IRB framework and process – better than would relying on the batch protocol to do the work for you.

• Once you receive IRB approval to begin gathering data for your study, you need to solicit informed consent from your prospective participants. Then you can begin collecting data from those who consent to participate. Collect enough data to allow you to make interesting and important discoveries to answer your research question(s), but beware the temptation and risk of collecting too many data. Yvonna S. Lincoln once said (and I have never forgotten, though I have emphatically ignored her good advice on more than one occasion): “We should collect fewer data and do more with the data we collect.”

• Use the methods for qualitative data analysis that you are learning from Constructing Grounded Theory (Charmaz) to develop your findings. Code your data, compose analytical memos, make diagrams, and do whatever else will help you gain insight into (build grounded theories about) the “studied lives” you are trying to understand.

• For Eng. 497, you will be asked to produce two drafts of your T3P. About 4 weeks before the end of the semester, you will share with others in the class a 1500-word draft of your research report (findings). At the end of the semester (as part of your course portfolio), you should produce a 3000-word (or longer) report (3000+ words of data and analysis; the word count does not include Works Cited, appendixes, or notes). If your research report presents significant information in visual and/or other non-alphabetic forms, then please talk with the professor to negotiate the appropriate quantity of composing for your T3P.

• Reviews of the literature are very important sub-genres for nearly every research context. Reviews of the literature help you find out what people already know about your research topic and research questions, so you know what you can most productively contribute to the professional conversation on those topics. Reviews of the literature are also rhetorical and dramatic performances through which you create in your readers the feeling and belief that your research question (and the answers you have developed) are timely, important, and interesting. However, for the specialized context and purposes of Eng. 497, I will direct you to mainly shirk and skimp on the important scholarly duty of the review of the literature. There are two reasons I will promote this specialized kind of shirking and skimping: (1) Since most research in English Studies is textual research, I am confident that you have prior experience and expertise in composing reviews of the literature; and (2) I want you to focus your energies in the context of Eng. 497 on making meaning of empirical (as opposed to textual) data (discursive, numerical, visual, audio, or several/all of these). Therefore please limit your review of the literature to a paltry 300 words. This skimpy review of the literature will make room and time for you to delve more deeply into analyzing your data. Likewise with your discussion of research methods; please limit this to about 600 words. Therefore at least 70 % (2100 words) of your final draft research report should report on the meaning you made of your data (i.e., your findings). (Please note: These quantitative targets are offered as minimums. If you wish to write more in any of these sections, you may.)

• In the foreground of your report of findings should be: (1) you, the researcher, (2) your data (especially quotations from your research participants), and (3) your insights into your data. Make sure your insights and ideas (not your raw data or your participants) provide the structure and primary content of your report of findings. However, within the conceptual structure derived from your insights and ideas about your data, you should also present bountiful quotations and other sorts of excerpts and views of your raw data as a way to illustrate the validity of (and render lively and vivid) your findings. The voices of your research participants should be strong as you report your findings, but not quite as strong as your voice as researcher and analyst.