{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp04_retrieval_first_paired20_20260802","cell_id":"computability_boundary_mapping__ethnography_qualitative_methods","hypothesis_id":"H1","search_queries":["grounded theory saturation stopping rule explicit uncertainty future cases negative case analysis","qualitative sampling saturation stopping criterion finite sampling frame exhaustive sample","theoretical saturation stopping rule software dashboard qualitative research saturation","patent qualitative research saturation theoretical sampling software","site:fda.gov qualitative interview saturation code saturation guidance","theoretical saturation critique cannot know future data qualitative research Braun Clarke saturation","conceptual depth scale theoretical saturation grounded theory Nelson 2016","qualitative saturation negative cases delayed interviews validation study"],"sources":[{"source_id":"PA1","title":"A simple method to assess and report thematic saturation in qualitative research","publisher":"PLOS ONE","url":"https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0232076&type=printable","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","claims_supported":["Operationalizes prospective thematic saturation through declared base size, run length, and new-information threshold.","Defines the result as little or no new useful information relative to study objectives, not proof that future cases contain no novelty.","Shows that fixed-dataset retrospective measures inevitably reach 100 percent and therefore cannot substantiate an unrestricted saturation claim."]},{"source_id":"PA2","title":"Using conceptual depth criteria: addressing the challenge of reaching saturation in qualitative research","publisher":"Qualitative Research / Queen's University Belfast","url":"https://pure.qub.ac.uk/files/121940009/ConceptPURE_Document.pdf","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","claims_supported":["Documents that saturation can misleadingly imply a final limit beyond which no insight is possible and can encourage claims stronger than the data warrant.","Substitutes theoretical sufficiency or conceptual depth for completeness and provides structured criteria supporting a study-specific stopping judgment.","Describes saturation grids, annotated codebooks, and chronological evidence of when new subcategories cease appearing as existing auditable practices."]},{"source_id":"PA3","title":"Evaluating Respiratory Symptoms (E-RS) in COPD: Clinical Outcome Assessment Staff Review","publisher":"U.S. Food and Drug Administration","url":"https://www.fda.gov/media/119241/download?attachment=","source_class":"GOVERNMENT_OR_REGULATOR","claims_supported":["Uses a first-party regulatory review of saturation evidence based on consecutive focus groups or interview groups yielding no new concepts.","Requires the observed stopping evidence to be documented in a saturation grid.","Demonstrates that bounded, auditable no-new-concept stopping rules already operate in consequential professional practice."]},{"source_id":"PA4","title":"Collecting and Analyzing Qualitative Data","publisher":"U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention","url":"https://www.cdc.gov/field-epi-manual/php/chapters/qualitative-data.html","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","claims_supported":["States that qualitative sampling ordinarily uses small purposive samples that do not support statistical generalization.","Describes saturation operationally as continuing interviews until additional interviews yield no additional insights while advising flexible sample-size ranges.","Emphasizes iterative coding, memoing, alternative explanations, and investigator judgment rather than a universal completeness certificate."]}],"proximity":"SUBSTANTIAL_COLLISION","closest_analogues":[{"name":"Guest, Namey, and Chen prospective thematic-saturation assessment","similarity":"Already replaces an intuitive binary stop with an explicit base, consecutive-run bound, novelty threshold, and auditable calculation; it also limits the conclusion to useful information relative to stated objectives.","remaining_difference":"It still calls the threshold result saturation and does not mandate a three-state interface separating witnessed novelty, exact finite-frame exhaustion, and unknown.","source_ids":["PA1"]},{"name":"Saturation grids and annotated codebooks in regulatory qualitative research","similarity":"Chronologically record concept discovery and support stopping only after a declared run of groups or interviews produces no new concepts, closely matching bounded evidence and traceability components.","remaining_difference":"They do not reserve exact certification for an enforceably finite eligible universe or structurally prohibit an open-ended saturation label.","source_ids":["PA2","PA3"]},{"name":"Nelson's conceptual-depth and theoretical-sufficiency criteria","similarity":"Directly rejects saturation as completeness, acknowledges that further variation can always be discovered, and substitutes a structured, evidenced sufficiency judgment.","remaining_difference":"It remains an interpretive adequacy framework rather than a machine-enforced three-state protocol with an explicit UNKNOWN outcome and finite-frame exhaustion certificate.","source_ids":["PA2"]}],"overlapping_components":["Declared stopping or run bound","Prospective novelty monitoring","Chronological saturation grid","Auditable stopping evidence","Distinction between code recurrence and conceptual or theoretical adequacy","Rejection of saturation as literal completeness","Study-relative sufficiency rather than population-wide proof","Iterative sampling and analysis","Explicit eligibility criteria and purposive sampling limits"],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"No directly reviewed source requires every study-round decision to use a three-state contract that permits exact exhaustion only for an enforceably finite eligible frame and otherwise reports bounded no-novelty evidence as UNKNOWN rather than saturation.","claim_falsifier":"A pre-existing method, standard, patent, or deployed qualitative-research product would falsify the contrastive claim if it both enforces finite-frame membership before issuing an exhaustion certificate and mandates an explicit unknown state for open-ended frames after a declared search bound.","problem_support":"STRONG","recommendation":"RESEARCH","world_novelty_boundary":"The saturation problem, bounded consecutive-case stopping rules, saturation grids, and warnings against completeness claims are established prior art; plausible novelty is confined to the enforced three-state output semantics and finite-frame-only exhaustion certificate. This is a bounded result from eight English-language ordinary-web queries and four directly reviewed sources; no matching patent or product surfaced, but that absence is not evidence of worldwide novelty."}