About the Authors

Kari Allen-Hammer, Ph.D. serves as the Advocacy Director for LiveLifeResources, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in the United States. Additionally, she provides wellness and performance coaching in private practice, in West Sacramento, California and through tele-health services. Emily Cashwell is the Director of Education and Research at the Institute for Research and Theory Methodologies (RTM), an organization that trains, mentors, and supports students, faculty, and researchers worldwide in qualitative, multi-method, mixed method, and grounded theory research. She...

From the Editor’s Desk

Classic Grounded Theory: What it Is and What it Is Not Grounded theory is arguably the most frequently published qualitative research method.  Yet it is often misunderstood.  Many years ago, I gave a talk on the general tenets of classic grounded theory at a large regional research conference.  After the presentation, a professor who taught PhD-level qualitative research at a large research university approached me asking: “Grounded theory doesn’t really need to result in a theory, does it?  Can’t it consist of a list of themes?”  In the same way that a pile of threads is...

Getting Started

Barney G. Glaser Editor’s note: This paper addresses common questions asked by novice grounded theorists about how to avoid preconception when thinking about research problems and research questions.  This important chapter has been excerpted and lightly edited for clarity and context from chapter 4 in Glaser’s Basics of Grounded Theory Analysis (1992). It may sometimes be said that one of the most difficult parts of doing research is to get started.  The making of choices and commitments to a research problem seem less secured and structured when doing descriptive...

Exerting Capacity: Mindsets of Bedside R...

J. Michael Leger, University of Texas Medical Branch, School of Nursing Carolyn A. Phillips, University of Texas Medical Branch, School of Nursing and Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Abstract This classic grounded theory (CGT) study explored the perspectives of bedside nurses about patient safety in the adult acute care environment. The theory that emerged, Exerting Capacity, explains how bedside nurses balance their own capacity against the demands of a given situation to fulfill their duty to keep their patients safe. Exerting Capacity revealed a typology of two...

Coming Home: A Journey Back to the Authe...

Emily Cashwell, Saybrook University Abstract The theory of coming home is a three-stage classic grounded theory that details an individual’s initial exploration of the world in childhood, followed by the subsequent abandoning of their authentic self and then the life-long journey back home to their most authentic being. In the first stage of the process, individuals act and express in authentic ways and receive feedback from the environment about which aspects of themselves are acceptable and which are not. In the second stage of the process, driven by feelings of shame...