Rashina Hoda has uploaded a conference paper "Grounded Theory for Geeks" on her blog. It's a kind of reflection paper based on the author's experience, which is very useful for people who are new to Grounded Theory. The problems in the GT Patterns is a good start for researchers to bear in mind if they decide to conduct a grounded theory research study.
Showing posts with label reflection_on_GT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reflection_on_GT. Show all posts
Reflection on the terms of "triangulation" and "grounded-theory"
Rebecca Hogue wrote on her blog about her understanding of constructivism, particularly, she explained two important terms in research methodology: "triangulation" and "grounded-theory".
I didn't quite get it when she said "I think the image in my brain this week should be of my brain exploding into three pieces – the world-view piece, the learning theory piece, and the research piece." For me, with different views of the world (philosophic background), we defined methodologies broadly as quantitative or qualitative.
Reflection on grounded theory use
Christoph Treude reflected his expereince of undertaking a grounded theory research study: "On using grounded theory in software engineering research". This is a very good post.
If Christoph is writing a journal article based on this post, writing more about two aspects will benefit readers:
- He noted "One of the challenges is to abstract the core category to the right level." By my experience, core category will emerge and main categories get saturated at different levels in the coding process. As different research has its own design, showing code and category examples will help readers to understand what means "abstract the core category to the right level". How can we abstract a category to the righ level and how do we know it's the right level?
- He also mentioned "After trying several tools (after all, as a Computer Science student I’d like to believe that computers can solve complex editing and annotation tasks), I gave up, printed all the data in font size 8, and went back to using pen and paper." It sounds interesting. I know some researchers didn't use qualitative data analysis software. I'm wondering what are the pros and cons between manual date analysis and software assisted data analysis. Is it only relevant to an individual's preference?
(The grounded theory ideas/discussions on Lennie Irvin’s blog are also useful for researchers. )
An example of reading note
"How to go about 'Constructing Grounded Theory'” is a post on Katie Kuksenok's blog. She shared her reflection about the book <<Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis>>.
open-minded, literature review and GT
Christina Pikas wrote "Random observation: true grounded theory vs. foreshadowed problems" on her blog to talk about the "pre-knowledge" issue.
Actually, I had a similar question before. Should a researcher be Tabula rasa? Applying Grounded Theory approach is not to say we go into the field what we research about without pre-knowledge or views. It's about, as a researcher, we need to recognise this issue and interpret data by exploring its meaning in that researched context. We can wrote down what we had known and what views we have, we also can compare some existent literatures or opinions, but it shouldn't affect the data analysis.
As May (1986: 149) noted:
Actually, I had a similar question before. Should a researcher be Tabula rasa? Applying Grounded Theory approach is not to say we go into the field what we research about without pre-knowledge or views. It's about, as a researcher, we need to recognise this issue and interpret data by exploring its meaning in that researched context. We can wrote down what we had known and what views we have, we also can compare some existent literatures or opinions, but it shouldn't affect the data analysis.
As May (1986: 149) noted:
The literature review in a grounded theory project neither provides key concepts nor suggests hypotheses as it does in hypothetico-deductive research. A lengthy or uncritical literature review in a grounded theory study can, in fact, reflect overdependence on existing knowledge. However, a review of existing literature can show gaps or systematic bias in existing knowledge, thus provide the rationale for launching a grounded theory study.May, K.A. (1986). "Writing and evaluating the grounded theory research report". In: Chenitz, W.C. & Swanson, J.M. (eds.), From practice to grounded theory: Qualitative research in nursing, pp. 146-154. Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley.
The memo of your understanding of GT is a part of your GT study
Silence and Voice is Jeffrey Keefer's blog. The entry "Musing on Grounded Theory" and the discussions about grounded theory show how a new researcher starts to learn grounded theory approach, new researchers' confusion between different GT works, and what a researcher's grounded philosophical thinking is.
A necessary way is to write down your ideas/understanding about grounded theory approach and its use over the process of your grounded theory research study. It is a part of your research memo and it notes your views/ideas developing.
A necessary way is to write down your ideas/understanding about grounded theory approach and its use over the process of your grounded theory research study. It is a part of your research memo and it notes your views/ideas developing.
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