Issue 1, June 2012
Stop. Write! Writing Grounded Theory
Barney G. Glaser The message in this book, the dictum in this book, is to stop and write when the Grounded Theory (GT) methodology puts you in that ready position. Stop unending conceptualization, unending data coverage, and unending listening to others who would egg you on with additional data, ideas and/or requirements or simply wait too long. I will discuss these ideas in detail. My experience with PhD candidates is that for the few who write when ready, many do not and SHOULD. Simply put, many write-up, but many more should. And yet writing is taken for granted, since without writing a substantive grounded theory is private “fantasy”. But taken for granted is often a postponement into the extended future, when the SGT is actually ready to write-up and should be made accessibly public. And writing up the theory is built into the GT method, which generates a readiness momentum to write it up. This is a readiness that is produced by sorted memos, which sorts emerged with autonomy and creativity. The researcher need only follow the procedures of the GT method to generate the motivation and readiness to write. To stop and write is built into the method. It is not done by pure choice, it is done by doing the next GT method step after sorting memos. The method produces this next step of readiness: to write-up memo sorts. This book is important, as there is very little in published work about how to write a grounded theory paper according to and integrated with the GT methodology. For most researchers writing is just assumed with no integration of writing with the method. For the few chapters in other books that deal with writing, they also lack this important integration with the GT method. Writing GT is a part of the method, not an after chore. Thus this book will deal with the important product yield a write-up that gives GT much public “grab” worldwide. Readiness Put simply, built into the GT methodology is the readiness and moment to write a substantive theory. This must be taken as it emerges, it is part of the method. It is not something to do after the research is done. It is part of the research GT methodology. In doing a GT research, first one goes into the field and starts open coding leading to conceptualizing his /her data using the constant comparative method. Then a core category is discovered, and selective coding starts and theoretical sampling for more data to see if the core category works. And if it does, one starts writing memos on the workings and relevance of the emerging concepts. Soon theoretical saturation of categories and their properties emerge and are memoed. Theoretical completeness emerges in the number of concepts about the core category, usually 4 to 6 sub concepts are sufficient. And in the emerging analysis of the concept memos, capturing the analysis, get more mature and formulated on their concept integration. Theoretical completeness occurs sufficiently to write a theory. The research then sorts his memos and writes more stimulated by the sorting. And then he/she is ready to write the theory in a first data draft, BY WRITING UP THE MEMOS. He/she does not write out of one’s head. The theory comes from a write-up of concepts and data in the mature memos. The method has produced its last stage of research. That is the write-up – a vital stage of the method carefully arrived...Classic Grounded Theory to Analyse Secondary Data: Reality and Reflections...
Lorraine Andrews, Agnes Higgins, Michael Waring Andrews, and Joan G. Lalor Abstract This paper draws on the experiences of two researchers and discusses how they conducted a secondary data analysis using classic grounded theory. The aim of the primary study was to explore first-time parents’ postnatal educational needs. A subset of the data from the primary study (eight transcripts from interviews with fathers) was used for the secondary data analysis. The objectives of the secondary data analysis were to identify the challenges of using classic grounded theory with secondary data and to explore whether the re-analysis of primary data using a different methodology would yield a different outcome. Through the process of re-analysis a tentative theory emerged on ‘developing competency as a father’. Challenges encountered during this re-analysis included the small dataset, the pre-framed data, and limited ability for theoretical sampling. This re-analysis proved to be a very useful learning tool for author 1(LA), who was a novice with classic grounded theory. Introduction The concept of secondary data analysis appears to have first entered the literature nearly 50 years ago, when Glaser discussed the potential of re-analysing data ‘which were originally collected for other purposes’ (1963, p. 11). Despite the 50-year gap, there still remains a paucity of literature which specifically addresses the processes and challenges of applying secondary data analysis to primary qualitative data and exploring the implications and outcomes of using a different methodology. This paper draws on the experiences of two people who attempted to use a classic grounded theory approach to analyse previously collected primary qualitative data. Prior to discussing the approach to secondary data analysis used for this study, the differences between primary data, secondary data and primary and secondary data analysis and metasynthesis are briefly outlined. Primary data originates from a study in which a researcher collects information him/herself to answer a particular research question. Secondary data, on the other hand, is data that already exists (Glaser, 1963). Consequently, the secondary data analyst is not involved in the recruitment of participants or in the collection of the data. Heaton (2004) defines secondary data analysis as ‘a research strategy which makes use of pre-existing quantitative data or pre-existing qualitative data for the purposes of investigating new questions or verifying previous studies’ (p. 16). In other words, secondary data analysis is the use of previously collected data, for some other purpose. It is not a method of data analysis, therefore methods such as grounded theory or statistical analysis, for example, can be applied to the process of secondary data analysis. Metasynthesis, on the other hand, differs from secondary data analysis in that it analyses qualitative findings from a group of studies, and does not re-use the primary data set, e.g. interviews, diaries, photographs, stories and field notes. Rather, it is ‘the aggregating of a group of studies for the purpose of discovering the essential elements and translating the results into the end product that transforms the original results into a new conceptualisation’ (Schreiber, Crooks & Stern, 1997, p. 314). A review of the literature highlights a number of reasons for conducting a secondary data analysis including: applying a new research question (Heaton, 2004); using old data to generate new ideas (Fielding, 2004); ‘verification, refutation and refinement of existing research’ (Heaton, 2004, p. 9), and exploring data from a different perspective (Hinds, Vogel & Clarke-Steffen, 1997). Despite the fact that secondary data analysis has been in use as a research tool for quite some time it...Guest Editorial, Themed Section
Cheri Fernandez University of Windsor As I have supervised or read numerous theses and dissertations and completed countless reviews of manuscripts that purport to do grounded theory, I have been struck by the confusion about what exactly grounded theory entails. In this themed section focusing on constructivist (constructionist) grounded theory, we strive to describe constructivist grounded theory, provide an exemplar of this research, and point out the differences between constructivist grounded theory and classic grounded theory. When grounded theory first emerged as a research methodology (Glaser, 1965; Glaser & Strauss, 1967) it literally rocked the research world and was quickly adopted by disciplines other than sociology from which it derived. For the first decade or two grounded theory continued without much ‘disturbance.’ However, later graduate students took up the public ‘challenge’ to “take the method in any direction they wished” (Glaser, 1978, p.158). First on the scene was the qualitative method by Strauss and Corbin, first known as qualitative data analysis but now called Straussian grounded theory. Later, the methods of feminist grounded theory (Wuest) and constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz) arrived on the research horizon. The developers of these variants took the challenge to make changes “more liking to their research bent” but neglected one major principle of research and theoretical clarity – they thought they were re-engineering (and sometimes bettering) grounded theory when, in actual fact, they were merely developing different methods. One of the most used methods in qualitative research is phenomenology. There are at least 19 different variants of phenomenology, all of which co-exist seemingly without duress. It is time that the ‘designers’ of grounded theory did likewise: understand the significant differences in philosophy, methodology, and research product of classic grounded theory, Straussian grounded theory, constructivist, and feminist grounded theory and quit the private and public bickering – bury the territorial hatchet. This themed section is organized to help readers truly see the differences between classic grounded theory and constructivist grounded theory. The first article by Barney G. Glaser argues that constructivist data are only a small part of the data grounded theory uses. The article was originally published in Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung 2002. Dr. Tom Andrews provides an introduction to constructionism/constructivism, the philosophical position underlying and driving the constructivist grounded theory method. Then, the constructivist research, Constructing New Theory for Identifying Students with Emotional Disturbance: A Constructivist Approach to Grounded Theory by Dr. Dori Barnett serves as a constructivist grounded theory research exemplar. This is followed by a commentary by Tom Andrews and me; the commentary utilizes the research exemplar to delineate key philosophical and methodological differences between constructivist grounded theory and classic grounded theory. Following this, the manuscript by Dr. Jenna Breckenridge, Derek Jones, Ian Elliott, and Margaret Nicol makes additional distinctions between constructivist grounded theory and classic grounded theory research processes, acknowledging the incompatibilities between the two methodologies; these insights were identified by Dr. Breckenridge as she was undertaking her PhD thesis...Constructivist Grounded Theory?
Barney G. Glaser Ph.D, Hon.Ph.D Abstract I refer to and use as scholarly inspiration Charmaz’s excellent article on constructivist grounded theory as a tool of getting to the fundamental issues on why grounded theory is not constructivist. I show that constructivist data, if it exists at all, is a very, very small part of the data that grounded theory uses. Introduction Constructivist Grounded Theory is a misnomer. Grounded theory (GT) can use any data; it remains to be figured out what it is. In my book “The Grounded Theory Perspective” (Glaser, 2001) I wrote a chapter that dealt with “all is data.” I said: ‘’All is data’ is a well known Glaser dictum. What does it mean? It means exactly what is going on in the research scene is the data, whatever the source, whether interview, observations, documents, in whatever combination. It is not only what is being told, how it is being told and the conditions of its being told, but also all the data surrounding what is being told. It means what is going on must be figured out exactly what it is to be used for, that is conceptualization, not for accurate description. Data is always as good as far as it goes, and there is always more data to keep correcting the categories with more relevant properties” (p.145). “All is Data” is a GT statement, NOT applicable to Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) and its worrisome accuracy abiding concern. Data is discovered for conceptualization to be what it is— theory. The data is what it is and the researcher collects, codes and analyzes exactly what he has whether baseline data, properline data or objective data or misinterpreted data. It is what the researcher is receiving, as a pattern, and as a human being (which is inescapable). It just depends on the research. Remember again, the product will be transcending abstraction, NOT accurate description. The product, a GT, will be an abstraction from time, place and people that frees the researcher from the tyranny of normal distortion by humans trying to get an accurate description to solve the worrisome accuracy problem. Abstraction frees the researcher from data worry and data doubts, and puts the focus on concepts that fit and are relevant. One major worry in QDA research, which does—but should not—effect GT, is a different take on the personal predilections of interviewer and interviewee. According to QDA interview data yields the construction of data that represents the mutual interpretation of the interviewer and of the interviewee as the interview proceeds. This constructivist orientation is that data is constructed with interacting interpretations. This orientation, as written, never seems to see it as a characteristic of the type of interviewing. It probably applies to lengthy, in-depth interviews where mutuality can grow based on forcing type interview guides (see Charmaz, 2000). But this type of interviewing is a small piece of GT interviewing, although it happens and one can do GT from it. Much GT interviewing is a very passive listening and then later during theoretical sampling focused questions to other participants during site spreading and based on emergent categories. It is hard for mutual constructed interpretations to characterize this data even though the data may be interpretive: for example psychotherapists telling the interviewer how to see a psychiatric facility or a supervisor telling how to understand his foremen. GT is a perspective based methodology and people’s perspectives vary. And as we showed in “Awareness of Dying” (Glaser &...What is Social Constructionism?
Tom Andrews University College Cork Abstract Social Constructionism has been instrumental in remodeling grounded theory. In attempting to make sense of the social world, social constructionists view knowledge as constructed as opposed to created. This paper discusses how social constructionists construct knowledge and argues that social constructionism is concerned with the nature of knowledge and how it is created and as such, it is unconcerned with ontological issues. Society is viewed as existing both as a subjective and an objective reality. Meaning is shared, thereby constituting a taken-for-granted reality. Grounded theorists understand knowledge as beliefs in which people can have reasonable confidence; a common sense understanding and consensual notion as to what constitutes knowledge. If it is accepted that social constructionism is not based on a relativist perspective, then it is compatible with Grounded Theory methodology. Introduction Social constructionism originated as an attempt to come to terms with the nature of reality. It emerged some thirty years ago and has its origins in sociology and has been associated with the post-modern era in qualitative research. This is linked to the hyperbolic doubt posed by Bacon, the idea about how observations are an accurate reflection of the world that is being observed (Murphy et al., 1998). Social constructionism is essentially an anti-realist, relativist stance (Hammersley, 1992). The influence of social constructionism is a current issue within grounded theory (Charmaz, 2000) and as such an understanding of its core concepts is important in evaluating its impact on the methodology. It is imperative for those considering grounded theory as a methodology for their research to appreciate the differences between grounded theory as originated by Glaser and Strauss (1997) and subsequently remodelled using a constructionist perspective. Given its current and profound influence on grounded theory, constructionism needs to be understood so that they can better evaluate the nature and validity of the arguments surrounding its use. The terms constructivism and social constructionism tend to be used interchangeably and subsumed under the generic term ‘constructivism’ particularly by Charmaz (2000, 2006). Constructivism proposes that each individual mentally constructs the world of experience through cognitive processes while social constructionism has a social rather than an individual focus (Young & Colin, 2004). It is less interested if at all in the cognitive processes that accompany knowledge. The aim of this article is to familiarise readers with the idea of social constructionism. Its impact on grounded theory is the subject of a subsequent article. Origins Burr (1995) acknowledges the major influence of Berger and Luckmann (1991) in its development. In turn they acknowledge the influence of Mead, Marx, Schutz and Durkheim on their thinking. Their writing therefore constitutes a synthesis of these influences. The origins of social constructionism can be traced in part to an interpretivist approach to thinking. Mead, one of the originators of symbolic interactionism, is the common link. However, my understanding is that while they may share common philosophical roots, social constructionism is distinct from interpretivism. In common with constructionists, interpretivists in general focus on the process by which meanings are created, negotiated, sustained and modified (Schwandt, 2003). Proponents share the goal of understanding the world of lived experience from the perspective of those who live in it. Both arose as a challenge to scientism and have been influenced by the post-modernist movement. Interpretivism differentiates between the social and natural sciences and has as its goal the understanding of the meaning of social phenomena. While interpretivists value the human subjective experience, they seek to develop...