C2 · Model: the loop

Build an explanation and try to break it

C2 moves from categories to a model: an explanation of how organizing happens, under which conditions and through which relationships.

Where this stage starts

C1 has supplied the third-order themes, the fourth-order themes and their evidence. The aggregator can return to a community's coded threads whenever an interpretation needs checking. It reads them as the community coder sealed them, never the raw download. Literature on how to conduct the analysis is available; comparison with substantive theories comes in C3.

What the aggregator does

The aggregator works on three linked products. A coding structure shows how participant evidence supports each level of themes, up to the aggregate dimensions. A concept account states what the analysis adds and what it cannot yet explain. The model links the ideas through conditions, actions and consequences.

Each arrow in the model makes a claim: when one thing happens, another follows, through a stated process. Two themes that appear together do not show that process. A feedback loop needs evidence of a cycle unfolding in time. Relationships that remain conjectures are marked apart from those grounded in the record.

The aggregator writes the model as a whole story and reads it against named communities, including cases that challenge it. Can the story explain what those participants did? What does it leave out? A miss can call for a narrower claim, a different relationship, a new distinction or an explicit limit. Each change is recorded when it happens, with the evidence that caused it.

The criteria for preferring a later model are declared before these rounds. A fresh critical reader also examines the developing account. The aggregator answers the criticism and runs every prescribed check, however finished the story reads.

What the next stage receives

C3 receives a model built through comparison with cases, its earlier versions and a record of unresolved material. It can compare the explanation with published theories and still trace how the model arose from this collection.