Book Review: Being Barney Glaser

Paul Dowling, University of London Grounded Theory: the philosophy, method, and work of Barney Glaser. Vivian B. Martin & Astrid Gynnild (Eds). 2011. Boca Raton. BrownWalker Press. I was a little taken aback when Astrid Gynnild asked me to review this work for Grounded Theory Review. As I explained, I have been impressed by a lot of what Glaser and Strauss and Glaser writing alone have said to me about sociological research, I teach methodology at masters and doctoral levels and always recommend these works to my students, encouraging them, where appropriate, to adopt some of the more familiar strategies of this approach—let the data speak, theoretically sample, write memos, conceptualise, in particular. I will, however, not allow them to say that what they are doing is grounded theory and nor do I claim that that is what I do; I may have been impressed, even inspired by Glaser’s work, but what I do is other than it. So I’m not sure that I am qualified to review the book. Nevertheless, I agreed, only to be disconcerted by the announcement of audience in the introduction by Gynnild & Martin: It is our hope that grounded theorists at all stages of competence will find something useful to incorporate into their grounded theory practice. Much is said here about the desire to get good information into the hands of minus mentors, but the book is also for the many skilled GT researchers around the globe who are searching for more insights, inspiration, and ideas to move on with their own GT projects (p. 11). It would appear that I am not even included as a reader, yet I am now asked to address people who certainly are. Well, here goes. Firstly, I think Gynnild and Martin have left me out in error. There is a great deal in this collection for the non-specialist in grounded theory starting with the discussion and illustration of mentoring in the introduction and in the first section of the book, “Teaching grounded theory,” in particular. Indeed, the editors have deployed a grounded theory approach to the analysis of their own collection. In their introduction, Gynnild and Martin present the outcome of this analysis, revealing that the main concern in this book is “mentoring a method” — the title of the introduction—“through cultivating competence of grounded theory networks over extended periods of time” (p. 3). If a practice—any practice—is to have coherence in its practical application, then that coherence will, in part, at least, be characterised by what I (Dowling, 2009) call “low discursive saturation,” whereby its principles are not available within language, cannot be validly codified in books, though we may try. As Guthrie and Lowe put it in their chapter giving advice to students and their supervisors: Have you ever read a book which aims to teach you how to ski, surf, ride a horse? None, no matter how well written, can mimic what it is really like to feel the full range of these real experiences as they are lived (p. 154). Neither do you learn to ride a horse or do research—at least, not well—without a mentor. This is an important lesson for all educators and, in particular, for the supervisors of dissertations to take mentoring seriously, whatever their approach to research. Of course, mentoring is not the only responsibility that a supervisor has in respect of their students, particularly where the students are drawing productively on the supervisor’s own work. Examiners will...

Deciphering Unwritten Rules

Anna Sandgren, Jönköping University Abstract The aim of this study was to develop a classic grounded theory of patients, relatives and nurses in palliative cancer care. Data from three earlier studies conducted in palliative care were analyzed. “Deciphering unwritten rules” emerged as the pattern of behavior through which patients, relatives and nurses are dealing with the uncertainty of how to act and behave in palliative cancer care. Deciphering means finding out what the rules mean and trying to interpret them and this can be done consciously or unnoticed. Deciphering unwritten rules involves the strategies figuring out, deliberating, maneuvering and evaluating. This theory demonstrates the complexities of palliative care and the importance of knowledge, counseling and resources for all involved. Introduction Palliative care is a caring philosophy with the goal to achieve the best possible quality of life for both patients and relatives when facing problems related to life-threatening illness (World Health Organization, 2003). The adjustment and transition to palliative care takes time for patients and relatives, and involves shifting the care goals from curing to caring (Duggleby & Berry, 2005). In the 1960’s it was common for patients not to be informed of their impending death; so the awareness of dying among patients and relatives was mostly a closed awareness (Glaser & Strauss, 1965). The pendulum has shifted during the last decades towards open awareness, where those involved talk more about death than they have in the past (Andrews & Nathaniel, 2009). Powerlessness and helplessness is common in dying patients (Sand, Strang, & Milberg, 2008) who often oscillate between different feelings such as hopelessness and hope (Melin-Johansson, Odling, Axelsson, & Danielson, 2008). So even if patients have a lower quality of life in many dimensions during their last months of life, they can still experience happiness and satisfaction (Sahlberg-Blom, Ternestedt, & Johansson, 2001). For the relatives, the situation is new and they need to make adjustments, although they want to keep on living as normally as possible (Appelin, Broback, & Bertero, 2005; Sandgren, Thulesius, Petersson, & Fridlund, 2010), yet having a twofold role; as caregivers and as relatives suffering anxiety and physical exhaustion (Broback & Bertero, 2003). Both patients and relatives can be hypersensitive to what happens during the dying trajectory and this hypersensitivity is energy draining (Sandgren et al., 2010). It has been shown that adequate information and support from the health professionals early in the disease trajectory decrease relatives’ needs throughout the dying trajectory and increases their trust and confidence towards the health professionals (Kristjanson & White, 2002; Wenrich et al., 2003). Caring for cancer patients can be both challenging and rewarding for nurses (Corner, 2002; Penson, Dignan, Canellos, Picard, & Lynch, 2000) who often want to go beyond the diagnostic concept of cancer and care for the whole person (Bertero, 1999). A balance between being close to the patients and distancing themselves is needed to avoid the risk of being emotionally overloaded (Sandgren, Thulesius, Fridlund, & Petersson, 2006). Palliative care can also be seen as a balancing act, where health professionals need to balance the needs for care with the resources to give care (Thulesius, Hakansson, & Petersson, 2003). There can be a tension or a gap between nurses’ caregiving ideals and the reality of daily work. Nurses can be aware of their ideal of how to give good palliative care, but the possibilities to realize these are often small (Tishelman et al., 2004). To give high quality palliative care, health professionals need to know what...

Editorial

Astrid Gynnild Editor I am delighted to introduce the first issue of the Grounded Theory Review as an open access journal. This means that from now on, all academic articles provided by the journal are freely accessible online, including the archives. As an interdisciplinary, peer reviewed methodological journal, the Grounded Theory Review serves a broad academic community across continents. We are committed to the worldwide dissemination and advancement of classic grounded theory methodology, and similar to an increasing number of academic journals, we support a free exchange of scholarly knowledge, independent of access to scholarly funding or library facilities. We are convinced that the switch to open access will benefit not only readers but also the authors, who will see their articles more widely read and cited. That being said, it is important to emphasize that open access only concerns audience’ access to scholarly knowledge. As a peer reviewed journal we adhere to the highest standards of scholarly publishing and will constantly work on quality improvement. As such we will strive for a prompt turnaround on reviews; returning reviews to authors as quickly as is consistent with a thorough evaluation of their work. As the new editor of the Review, I am grateful to the former editor-in-chief, Judith Holton and the dedication she has shown over the last eight years. Judith has developed the journal to a high scholarly level, not the least through systematic quality improvement of the peer review process. I also wish to thank Cheri Fernandez, who has served as an assistant editor of the journal since 2010 and who is the guest editor of the themed section of this issue. On assuming my role as editor, I was delighted to learn of her well developed plans for an issue on constructivist grounded theory. I am also grateful to Carol Roderick for her continued and valued contributions as copy editor. Thanks to Scot Hacker, Helen Scott, and Shimrit Berman, who all did great work with the new journal web site. This issue starts with a general section, which deals with two topics that are of concern to all researchers who plan to use grounded theory. I am happy to publish the first chapter in Barney G. Glaser’s coming book Stop, Write! Writing Grounded Theory, in which dr. Glaser discusses writing blocks and how we can develop our sensitivity for the readiness moment for writing. The second article, written by Lorraine Andrews et al., discusses how grounded theory can be used to analyze secondary data. In the themed section, guest editor Cheri Fernandez has collected four articles that deal with the differences between classic grounded theory and constructivist grounded theory. The collection includes an introduction to constructivism written by Tom Andrews, an exemplar of constructivist grounded theory written by Dori Barnett; a commentary to Barnett’s article by Tom Andrews and Cheri Fernandez; and a reprint of Barney G. Glaser’s article from 2002, Constructivist Grounded Theory? Jenna P. Breckenridge et al. close this section with “Choosing a Methodological Path: Reflections on the Constructivist Turn.” For the coming issues of the Grounded Theory Review, we are interested in grounded theories and methodological papers as well as papers on teaching and learning grounded theory, and shorter conceptual discussions (see submissions)....

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...