Re: help please/rising to the concrete

From: Karen Spear Ellinwood (kspearellinwood@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Jul 08 2003 - 10:20:49 PDT


I am a mere doctoral student in language, reading, and culture, and have had minimal exposure to research in the field. I have had considerable experience – 13 years - in practicing law (criminal defense). Trial practice relies upon the social construction of data and making it real for the defendant and the public – as real as data interpretation ever gets. We trial lawyers say that jury selection (next to opening statements) is the most important phase of the trial. The kind of jury one has on a particular charge at a particular time is critical. What is happening in the world around us is essential to the outcome. Case in point, the moratorium on the death penalty influenced the outcome of jury determinations of death or life sentences. The ideology of individual jurors at ‘play’ in group deliberations is something we could only guess about, but try to make an educated guess based on experiences. That ‘educated’ guess is not always aptly informed given that temporal and !
 spatial
 constraints determine the decision.

 

The concrete experience provided by Dr. Cole is:

 

<< We would have two or members of our group code a series of interactions and put them in categories, and within a few (very time consuming!) sessions, the coders would become to high levels of agreement. But then one of the coders would move on to another job, or get sick, or get reassigned for some reason to some other activity. And, lo and behold, when a new coder was paired with an old coder, or two new coders tried to replicate, reliability went to hell in a handbasket.>>

 

Dr. Cole’s supposition in this case is that “…the initial coders formed an idioculture which allowed them to anticipate their joint interpretations, but its was a culture of two and very fragile. The codes did not cut interactional nature at its joint, but hacked a usable concensus”, makes a great deal of sense.

 

I believe every coder has an ideology brought to bear on the categorization and interpretation of the data, much as the juror brings his/her ideological framework to bear on deliberations and decisions in the jury room. In death or other serious felony cases, trial lawyers insist upon having ‘alternate’ jurors. I believe this happened in the O.J. Simpson case. When one juror falls seriously ill or dies and must be replaced by an alternate juror, the outcome of the deliberations might be altered irretrievably. When the alternate juror is put into the matter after deliberations have started, one could wind up with a ‘hung jury’ or an unexpected verdict.

 

In research, the project supervisor probably selects carefully those s/he works with to interpret the data. Likely, these assistants are of like mind or theoretical framework. But, it is also likely (highly probable) that graduate students are an integral part of the process. The thing about us graduate students is that our minds, our ideological frameworks, are in the earlier stages of development – subject to change more drastically than the framework of a seasoned researcher ‘embedded’ in his/her work and committed to certain expectations (though not to specific findings/conclusions).

 

Therefore, I believe that every pair or cohort of coders creates a zone of proximal development arising out of the conflict or confirmation of their respective, which determines the social construction of what is real. Anytime data is submitted to a group, one cannot separate what is 'real' and what is 'social construct'...social construct is real and real is comprised of social construct within its temporal/spatial context. (I am aware of the discussions previous re: defining context so I italicize that here. It too is open to interpretation.)

 

 If I interpret the question you raise correctly, I would ask that if we accept as real the socially constructed interpretation of the same data by a varying cohort of coders, then what 'real' is is redefined by temporal, spatial, and ideological constraints. Then, we can accept as 'real' the varying interpretations without compromising the definition of real. This would take the principal researcher on a different path, one that seeks to explain the varying interpretations, i.e., researching the researchers. This may not be preferable. So then the idea is what to do about the variation? Is it a limitation upon the findings and conclusions? Do we ‘control’ for it upfront in the ‘selection process’ of coders? What is acceptable to the principal researcher(s)? Do the principal researchers want to seek a finite real? Or, accept that when the cohort of coders changes, that the interpretation of data might also change, and we must account for the changes by accounting for the cha!
 nge in
 interlocutors with differing ideologies as ‘growth’ in a zone of proximal development perhaps unintentionally created.

Mike Cole <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu> wrote:

I have spent some time with the integrated text of discussion between
Jay and Victor. I hope others have done the same. Steve did us all a real
favor with his work. In fact, I would like to know how to get from pdf
to an editable file because he provided a next step integration that was
a great tool of thought.

I am having some difficulty with the abstractness of the discussion and
suspect I am not alone. I want to provide my interpretation of a concrete
instantiation of a point made by Victor which begins.... "Even simple experiments with a small collectivity of ....agents show that ...... while convergence
is possible it is fragile (i am simplifying here for lack of time, but the
context is retrievable.

Here is my candidate concrete instantiation

In the 1970's and '80s our research group spent a LOT of time videotaping
interactions and then coding them according to various motivated coding
schemes (speech act theory was one, but not the ohly one). We discovered
what Victor describes in a manner that I belive is still relevant to
xmca members.

We would have two or members of our group code a series of interactions and
put them in categories, and within a few (very time consuming!) sessions,
the coders would become to high levels of agreement. But then one of the
coders would move on to another job, or get sick, or get reassigned for
some reason to some other activity. And, lo and behold, when a new coder
was paired with an old coder, or two new coders tried to replicate, reliability
went to hell in a handbasket.

Our interpreation was (mine is) that the initial coders formed an idioculture
which allowed them to anticipate their joint interpretations, but its was a
culture of two and very fragile. The codes did not cut interactional
nature at its joint, but hacked a usable concensus.

Hence, in reading the discussion between victor and jay, that part of it
is not abstract/empty for me. It is a serious methodological caution based
upon experienced reality.

I do not believe this is a unique experience. Anyone else experienced this
problem in rendering descriptions as "real" and not social conventions?
mike

Sincerely,

Karen C. Spear-Ellinwood
Doctoral Student/Language, Reading, and Culture
College of Education, University of Arizona

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