Reading about Grounded Theory

Grounded theory has a flexible and systematic way of collecting and analyzing data.  It aims to help researchers to immerse in the data and explore connections among emerging concepts.

Inspired after reading Kathy Charmaz 2014.


Ontology
-a set of concepts and categories in a subject area or domain that shows their properties and the relations between them.

Epistemology
-the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion.

Iteration
-the repetition of a process or utterance.


These terminology appeared many times in Grounded Theory. I need to pay closer attention to them so that I could truly produce quality study using grounded theory method.

Charmaz also explains what is A PROCESS? (p17)

A process consists of unfolding temporal sequences that may have identifiable markers with clear beginnings and endings and benchmarks in between.

The temporal sequences are linked in a process and lead to change.  Thus single events become linked as part of a larger whole.


I LIKE how Charmaz describe GT, it serves as a way to learn about the worlds we study and a method for developing theories to understand them.


Glasser and Strauss talk about discovering theory as emerging from data separate from the scientific observer; HOWEVER,

Charmaz "assume that neither data nor theories are discovered either as given in the data or the analysis.  Rather, we are part of the world we study, the data we collect, and the analyses we produce."

We construct our grounded theories through our past and present involvements and interactions with people, perspectives, and research practices.

Charmaz's approach explicitly assumes that any theoretical rendering offers an interpretive portrayal of the studied world, not an exact picture of it.

RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS' IMPLICIT MEANINGS, EXPERIENTIAL VIEWS 

+

RESEARCHERS' FINISHED GROUNDED THEORIES

=
CONSTRUCTIONS OF REALITY (henceforth it is called "Constructivist Grounded Theory"


Sensitizing concept is a broad term without definitive characteristics; it sparks your thinking about a topic (van den Hoonard, 1997).  It gives initial but tentative ideas to pursue and questions to raise about their topics.

Ways of getting rich and sufficient data:

1) Have I collected enough background data abt persons, processes, and settings to have ready recall and to understand and portray the full range of contexts of the study?

2) Have I gained detailed descriptions of a range of participants' view and actions?

3) Do the data reveal what lies beneath the surface?

4) Are the data sufficient to reveal changes over time?

5) Have I gained multiple views of the participants' range of actions?

6) Have I gathered data that enable me to develop analytic categories?

7) What kinds of comparisons can I make between data?  How do these comparisons generate and inform my ideas?