Dear Mickey,

In response, Ana and Ray's paper is on realist evaluation. It does contain some important transferable lessons for realist synthesis, but the processes are not all the same between these two methods.

For a realist synthesis, I would suggest focussing on developing and refining programme theory.

You provided a few mock documents and they seem to me a sensible way of capturing data from documents included in your review.

I would however have a careful look at what you have labelled as mechanisms. Using or doing something is not necessarily a mechanism. You may wish to revisit the sections that discuss mechanisms in 'Realist synthesis: RAMESES training materials'.

Finally, you last questions seem to me to relate to focussing your review.

I hope I am not stating the obvious, if I am forgive me, but a rule of thumb to help you work out what you need to do for your project would be to clarify what your research question(s) are and objective(s).

Section 3 in the aforementioned 'Realist synthesis: RAMESES training materials' has some guidance on this.

Good luck

Geoff

On 6 February 2014 11:48, Mickey Sanders <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Thank you so much, Dr. Wong.

I know that your time is valuable, and your responses help tremendously. I appreciate your notes immensely as time gets tighter for conducting and submitting the review to my committee. THANK YOU.

I do have the Training Manual and am going through it slowly. Thank you.

I probably have 15-20 RSM-related pieces that I keep reading. :-) I just re-read yesterday (inspired after reading your post to me) the

Pawson, R., & Manzano-Santaella, A. (2012). A realist diagnostic workshop. Evaluation, 18(2), 176–191. doi:10.1177/1356389012440912

article.

I think that article brings me to clarity more than any other, when I discover that I may have drifted off into not understanding fully a process or stage in RSM.

Question: Is Table 1 on page 185 of the Pawson and Manzano-Santaella (2012) article what is meant by that phrase "theoretically based evaluative framework" that I asked about yesterday? I think it's just the various terminology that might be getting me.

Also, regarding CMOc tables and such . . .

I am revising my proposal for my committee, so yesterday I made a few "mock" documents for the proposal to try to aid in explanation for the committee (and myself, if truth be told). They are attached below and any comments are welcome (craved!).

Here they are:
http://theblossomingfledglingresearcher.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/zys-2014-02-06-table-__-mock-empirical-data-extracted-to-use-for-refining-cmoc-shared-at-rameses-forum2.pdf

http://theblossomingfledglingresearcher.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/zys-2014-02-06-figure-__-illustration-of-coding-using-a-mock-text-excerpt-and-mock-codes-shared-at-rameses-forum.pdf

Lastly: I finally made it through enough of the other RSM documents to get to the Standards document. Oh, boy! I am concerned that an RSM delimitted for the master's degree level (the way I'm doing so) may only be adequate (not good) according the standards. It may be treading on the line, but I can't be sure.

For instance: I have been trying to think my way through justifying some of the delimitations with keeping my eye on submitting an RS that has NOT devolved into a narrative review. I know I must delimit the number of CMOcs I test, and the scheme of justification for doing so . . . it may not suffice to receive a marking of "good." My thought was to say the following in regards to focusing the hypothesized Ms I will explore:

-----------------------
For 3 years I implemented the practice under review. While doing so, I was fortunate enough to have been able to simultaneously read much susbstantive theory that might suffice to explain the underlying mechanisms of the practice. In that experience, a dialogic between research knowledge and practical knowledge developed. Given the nature of the theoretical literature in our field (bloated, hardly cumulative, deceptively repetitive due to proliferation and lack of consolidation of equivalent concepts that use different terminology, etc.) . . . I have selected which Ms to focus upon by considering:

1. conceptual framework (there's a pressing CF in the field right now and I have prioritized the Ms that resonate with it);
2. official program theory (I want to include SOME of these in the analysis for the sake of seeing if they bear out); finally,
3. I want to include those mechanisms I most saw at play during those 3 years of my experience of looking at practice through the lens of research theory and vice versa.

I will make elemental CMOCs of the above-identified Ms and then synthesize these CMOCs.

--------------------

MY QUESTION IS: What if 5 distinct, propositional CMOCs remain after synthesizing all those feeding in my initial, rough program theory. I guess I will limit the number of CMOcs to explore to be 5 at most??? I've never done an RS before, so in my mind refining 5 CMOCs seems plenty if not TOO much. Would that be accurate? I could go down to fewer if it is advised! Three sounds about right, perhaps, for the MA level, do you think? Or does this just depend from study to study, given constraints?

Well, thank you, everyone, for your help and patience with those of us learning. I pray I'm thinking correctly about all of this and that where I'm not, I'll discover so sooner than later!

Take care, all! And please excuse my typos. Vibes for your current endeavors!

Mickey