Qualitative Methods

of Research

MERVIN GASCON, Ph.D.

College of Development Management
University of Southeastern Philippines
What is Qualitative Research?

Qualitative research is a situated activity that locates the observer in the

world. It consists of a set of interpretive, material practices that make
the world visible. These practices transform the world. They turn the
world into a series of representations, including fieldnotes, interviews,
conversations, photographs, recordings, and memos to the self. At this
level, qualitative research involves an interpretive, naturalistic approach
to the world. This means that qualitative researchers study things in
their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret,
phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them (Denzin &
Lincoln, 2005, p. 3).
Characteristics of Qualitative Research
1) Natural Setting
Qualitative researchers tend to collect data in the field at the site where
participants' experience the issue or problem under study. They do not
bring individuals into a lab, nor do they typically send out instruments for
individuals to complete. This upclose information gathered by actually
talking directly to people and seeing them behave and act within their
context is a major characteristic of qualitative research. In the natural
setting, the researchers have face-to-face interaction over time.
Characteristics of Qualitative Research
2) Researcher as key instrument
The qualitative researchers collect data themselves through examining
documents, observing behavior, and interviewing participants. They
may use a protocol—an instrument for collecting data but the
researchers are the ones who actually gather the information. They do
not tend to use or rely on questionnaires or instruments developed by
other researchers.
Characteristics of Qualitative Research
3) Inductive data analysis
Qualitative researchers build their patterns, categories, and themes from
the "bottom-up," by organizing the data into increasingly more abstract
units of information. This inductive process involves researchers working
back and forth between the themes and the database until they establish a
comprehensive set of themes. It may also involve collaborating with the
participants interactively, so that they have a chance to shape the themes
or abstractions that emerge from the process.
Characteristics of Qualitative Research
4) Participants' meanings
In the entire qualitative research process, the researchers keep a focus
on learning the meaning that the participants hold about the problem or
issue, not the meaning that the researchers bring to the research or
writers from the literature.
Characteristics of Qualitative Research
5) Emergent design
The research process for qualitative researchers is emergent. This means that the
initial plan for research cannot be tightly prescribed, and that all phases of the
process may change or shift after the researchers enter the field and begin to
collect data. For example, the questions may change, the forms of data
collection may shift, and the individuals studied and the sites visited may be
modified. The key idea behind qualitative research is to learn about the problem
or issue from participants and to address the research to obtain that information.
Characteristics of Qualitative Research
6) Theoretical lens
Qualitative researchers often use a lens to view their studies, such as the
concept of culture, central to ethnography, or gendered, racial, or class
differences. Sometimes, the study may be organized around identifying
the social, political, or historical context of the problem under study.
Characteristics of Qualitative Research
7) Interpretive inquiry
Qualitative research is a form of inquiry in which researchers make an
interpretation of what they see, hear, and understand. The researchers'
interpretations cannot be separated from their own background, history, context,
and prior understandings. After a research report is issued, the readers make an
interpretation as well as the participants, offering yet other interpretations of the
study. With the readers, the participants, and the researchers all making an
interpretation, we can see how multiple views of the problem can emerge.
Characteristics of Qualitative Research
8) Holistic account
Qualitative researchers try to develop a complex picture of the problem
or issue under study. This involves reporting multiple perspectives,
identifying the many factors involved in a situation, and generally
sketching the larger picture that emerges. Researchers are bound not by
tight cause-and-effect relationships among factors, but rather by
identifying the complex interactions of factors in any situation.
Locating the Field
In their 2011 Handbook chapter
“Revitalizing Universities by Reinventing
the Social Sciences: Bildung and Action
Research,” Morten Levin and Davydd
Greenwood call for a reinvention of the
social sciences in the corporate spaces of the
neoliberal university.
Locating the Field
Levin and Greenwood (2011) argue that
action researchers have a responsibility
to do work that is socially meaningful
and socially responsible. The
relationship between researchers,
universities, and society must change.
Locating the Field
The problems covered originate in the
lives of the research co-participants;
they do not come down from on high by
way of grand theory. Together,
stakeholders and action researchers co-
create knowledge that is pragmatically
useful and grounded in local knowledge.
History of Qualitative Research

Herodotus, a Greek scholar writing in

the 5th century B.C.E., had interests that
were cross-cultural as well as historical.
History of Qualitative Research

Greek skeptical philosopher Sextus

Empiricus conducted a cross-cultural
survey of morality, showing that what
was considered right in one society was
considered wrong in others.
History of Qualitative Research

During the Renaissance and Baroque

eras, “how to do it books” became a fad
such as Baldassare Castiglione’s The
Book of the Courtier.
History of Qualitative Research

Thoinot Arbeau’s Orchésographie on

courtly dancing.
History of Qualitative Research

Johann Comenius’ Didactica Magna on

pedagogy.
History of Qualitative Research

Isaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler on

fishing.
History of Qualitative Research

John Playford’s The Division Violin on

how to improvise in playing the violin.
17th Century’s Age of Enlightenment
17th Century’s Age of Enlightenment

Positivism prevailed during

the era.
17th Century’s Age of Enlightenment
The British moral philosopher
David Hume inferred from
regular association and
constant conjunction—
between events (i.e., A can be
considered to cause B when
the two events always occur
together, and A always
precedes B in time).
17th Century’s Age of Enlightenment

Social physics - social processes

were monitored by means of
frequency tabulation, and
generalizations about social
processes could be derived from the
analysis of frequency data.
17th Century’s Age of Enlightenment

In England, William Petty’s

Political Arithmetic published
in 1690.
17th Century’s Age of Enlightenment

In France and Germany, the

term statistics began to be
used to refer to quantitative
information collected for
purposes of the state—for
finance, population, disease,
and mortality
History of Qualitative Research

19th century French

philosopher, often called the
“father of sociology”—first
used the term “sociology” in
1838 to refer to the scientific
study of society. ...
History of Qualitative Research

Adolphe Quetelet (1835), advocated the

use of statistics to accomplish what he
labeled outright as a “social physics.”
History of Qualitative Research

Early anthropologists with

foundational interests in
social and cultural evolution
also aimed their inquiry
toward generalization –
ethnology.
History of Qualitative Research

(1883-1911), He advocated an
approach that differed from that
of natural sciences (which he
called Naturwissenschaften).
History of Qualitative Research

Influenced by Dilthey
 Philosophical Assumptions

• The nature of reality (ontology),

• How the researcher knows what she or he knows
(epistemology),
• The role of values in the research (axiology),
• The language of research (rhetoric), and
• The methods used in the process (methodology)
(Creswell, 2003).
Philosophical Assumptions with
Implications for Practice
Philosophical Assumptions with
Implications for Practice
 Five Qualitative
Approaches
to Inquiry

1) Ethnography
2) Case Studies
3) Narrative Research
4) Phenomenology
5) Grounded Theory
Ethnography
In the 19th century,
anthropologists began to use
the term ethnography for
descriptive accounts of the
lifeways of particular local
sets of people who lived in
colonial situations around the
world.
 Ethnography

Unlike grounded theory,

ethnography studies with the
participants from same place
or interacting on so frequent a
basis that they develop shared
patterns of behavior, beliefs,
and language.
 Ethnography

An ethnography focuses on an
entire cultural group. Granted,
sometimes this cultural group
may be small (a few teachers,
a few social workers), but it
also can be as large as the
whole school or the entire
community.
 Ethnography

Ethnography describes and

interprets the shared and
learned patterns of values,
behaviors, beliefs, and
language of a culture-sharing
group (Harris, 1968).
 Ethnography
As a process, ethnography
involves extended
observations of the group,
most often through
participant observation, in
which the researcher is
immersed in the day-to-
day lives of the people.
 Ethnography

Ethnographers study the

meaning of the behavior,
the language, and the
interaction among
members of the culture-
sharing group.
Early ethnographers
From comparative cultural anthropology
conducted by early 20th-century
anthropologists

Bronislaw Malinowski, Polish (1884-1942)

Early ethnographers
From comparative cultural anthropology
conducted by early 20th-century
anthropologists

Margaret Mead, American (1901-1978)

Recent Ethnographies
Recently, scientific approaches
to ethnography include cultural
and cognitive anthropology,
feminism, Marxism,
ethnomethodology, critical
theory, cultural studies, and
postmodernism (Atkinson &
Hammersley, 1994 ).
 Types of
Ethnographies

Realist ethnography
Critical ethnography
Realist Ethnography
A traditional approach used by
cultural anthropologists. It is
an objective account of the
situation, typically written in
the third person dispassionate
voice objectively on the
information learned from
participants at a site.
Critical Ethnography
The authors advocate for the
emancipation of groups
marginalized in society (Thomas,
1993). Critical researchers
typically are politically-minded
individuals who seek, through
their research, to speak out against
inequality and domination
(Carspecken & Apple, 1992).
Critical Ethnography

A critical ethnographer
studies issues of power,
empowerment, inequality,
inequity, dominance,
repression, hegemony,
and victimization.
Procedures for
Conducting an Ethnography

1. Determine if ethnography
is the most appropriate
design to use to study the
research problem.
2. Identify and locate a
culture-sharing group to
study.
Procedures for
Conducting an Ethnography

3. Select cultural themes

or issues to study about
the group.
4. To study cultural
concepts, determine
which type of
ethnography to use.
Procedures for
Conducting an Ethnography

5. Gather information
where the group works
and lives. This is called
fieldwork (Wolcott,
1999).
Procedures for
Conducting an Ethnography

6. Forge a working set of

rules or patterns as the
final product of this
analysis. The final
product is a holistic
cultural portrait,
emic + etic.
Challenges
1) The researcher needs
to have a grounding in
cultural anthropology
and the meaning of a
social-cultural system.
Challenges
2) The time to collect
data is extensive,
involving prolonged
time in the field.
Challenges
3) There is a possibility
that the researcher will
"go native" and be
unable to complete the
study or be
compromised in the
study.
Challenges
3) There is a possibility
that the researcher will
"go native" and be
unable to complete the
study or be
compromised in the
study.
Case Study Research
Case study research
involves the study of an
issue explored through
one or more cases
within a bounded
system.
Case Study Research
Stake (2005) states that
case study research is not
a methodology but a
choice of what is to be
studied (i.e., a case within
a bounded system).
Case Study Research
Others present it as a
strategy of inquiry, a
methodology, or a
comprehensive research
strategy (Denzin &
Lincoln, 2005; Merriam,
1998; Yin, 2003).
Case Study Research
In case study research, the
investigator explores a
bounded system (a case)
or multiple bounded
systems (cases) over time,
through detailed, in-depth
data collection.
Sources of Information
-Observations
-Interviews
-Audiovisual material
-Documents
Types of Case Studies
-Single instrumental case
study
-Multiple case study
-Intrinsic case study
Types of Case Studies
Single instrumental case
study - the researcher
focuses on an issue or
concern, and then selects
one bounded case to
illustrate this issue.
Types of Case Studies
Multiple case study
- the one issue or concern
is again selected, but the
inquirer selects multiple
case studies to illustrate
the issue.
Types of Case Studies
Intrinsic case study
- the focus is on the case
itself (e.g., evaluating a
program, or studying a
student having difficulty-
see Stake, 1995).
Procedures for
Conducting a Case Study

1) First, researchers
determine if a case
study approach is
appropriate to the
research problem.
Procedures for
Conducting a Case Study

2) Researchers next
need to identify their
case or cases.
Procedures for
Conducting a Case Study
3) The data collection in
case study research is
typically extensive, drawing
on multiple sources of
information, such as
observations, interviews,
documents, and audiovisual
materials.
Procedures for
Conducting a Case Study
4) The type of analysis of
these data can be a holistic
analysis of the entire case or
an embedded analysis of a
specific aspect of the case
(Yin, 2003).
Challenges
The case study researcher must
decide which bounded system
to study, recognizing that
several might be possible
candidates for this selection and
realizing that either the case
itself or an issue, which a case
or cases are selected to
illustrate, is worthy of study.
Challenges
The researcher must consider
whether to study a single case
or multiple cases. The study of
more than one case dilutes the
overall analysis; the more cases
an individual studies, the less
the depth in any single case.
Contrasting Characteristics of Five Qualitative Approaches
Contrasting Characteristics of Five Qualitative Approaches
Contrasting Characteristics of Five Qualitative Approaches
Differentiating Approaches by Foci
Narrative Research

Rooted in different
social and humanities
disciplines (Daiute &
Lightfoot, 2004).
Narrative Research
"narrative is understood
as a spoken or written text
giving an account of an
event/action or series of
events/actions,
chronologically connected"
(Czarniawska, 2004.
Narrative Research

"Narrative" might be the

term assigned to any text
or discourse, or, it might
be text used within the
context of a mode of
inquiry in qualitative
research (Chase, 2005).
Narrative Research

Pinnegar and Daynes

(2006) suggest, narrative
can be both a method and
the phenomenon of study.
Narrative Research

As a method, it begins
with the experiences as
expressed in lived and
told stories of
individuals.
 Narrative Research

Narrative research involves 1-

2 individual/s, gathering data
through the collection of their
stories, reporting individual
experiences, and
chronologically ordering (or
using life course stages).
Types of Narrative Studies

Biographical study is a
form of narrative study in
which the researcher
writes and records the
experiences of another
person's life.
Types of Narrative Studies

Autobiography is written
and recorded by the
individuals who are the
subject of the study (Ellis,
2004 ).
Types of Narrative Studies

A life history portrays

an individual's entire
life.
Types of Narrative Studies
Personal experience
story is based on
personal experiences
found in single or
multiple episodes,
private situations, or
communal folklore.
Types of Narrative Studies
Oral history consists of
gathering personal
reflections of events and
their causes and effects
from one individual or
several individuals
(Plummer, 1983).
Types of Narrative Studies
Narrative studies may have
a specific contextual focus,
such as teachers or
children in classrooms
(Ollerenshaw & Creswell,
2002), or the stories told
about organizations
(Czarniawska, 2004).
Procedures for Conducting
Narrative Research

1. Determine if the
research problem or
question best fits narrative
research (1 to a small
group).
Procedures for Conducting
Narrative Research
2. Select one or more
individuals who have
stories or life experiences
to tell, and spend
considerable time with
them gathering their
stories through multiples
types of information.
Procedures for Conducting
Narrative Research
3. Collect information
about the context of these
stories.
Procedures for Conducting
Narrative Research
4. Analyze the
participants' stories, and
then "restory' them into a
framework that makes
sense.
Procedures for Conducting
Narrative Research
Restorying is the process of
reorganizing the stories into some
general type of framework. This
framework may consist of gathering
stories, analyzing them for key
elements of the story (e.g., time, place,
plot, and scene), and then rewriting
the stories to place them within a
chronological sequence (Ollerenshaw
& Creswell, 2000).
Procedures for Conducting
Narrative Research
Cortazzi (1993) suggests that the
chronology of narrative research,
with an emphasis on sequence,
sets narrative apart from other
genres of research. One aspect of
the chronology is that the stories
have a beginning, a middle, and
an end.
Procedures for Conducting
Narrative Research
Similar to novels, narrative
research involves a predicament,
conflict, or struggle; a
protagonist, or main character;
and a sequence with implied
causality (i.e. a plot) during
which the predicament is
resolved in some fashion (Carter,
1993).
Procedures for Conducting
Narrative Research
The plot, or story line, may also
include Clandinin and
Connelly's (2000) three-
dimensional narrative inquiry
space: the personal and social
(the interaction); the past,
present, and future (continuity);
and the place (situation).
Procedures for Conducting
Narrative Research

5. Collaborate with
participants by actively
involving them in the
research (Clandinin &
Connelly, 2000).
Procedures for Conducting
Narrative Research

In narrative research, the

researcher and the
researched will learn and
change in the encounter
(Pinnegar & Daynes, 2006).
Procedures for Conducting
Narrative Research
Within the participant's story
may also be an interwoven
story of the researcher
gaining insight into her or his
own life (see Huber &
Whelan, 1999)
Procedures for Conducting
Narrative Research
Within the story may be
epiphanies or turning points
in which the story line
changes direction
dramatically.
Procedures for Conducting
Narrative Research

"Narrative inquiry is stories

lived and told," said
Clandinin and Connolly
(2000, p. 20).
Procedures for Conducting
Narrative Research
In the end, the narrative study
tells the story of individuals
unfolding in a chronology of
their experiences, set within
their personal, social, and
historical context, and including
the important themes in those
lived experiences.
 Challenges

The researcher needs to collect

extensive information about the
participant, and needs to have a
clear understanding of the
context of the individual's life.
 Challenges

Who owns the story? Who

can tell it? Who can change
it? Whose version is
convincing? What happens
when narratives compete? As
a community, what do stories
do among us?
Phenomenological Research

If a narrative study reports the life

of a single individual, a
phenomenological study describes
the meaning for several individuals
of their lived experiences of a
concept or a phenomenon.
Phenomenological Research

Phenomenologists focus on
describing what all participants
have in common as they
experience a phenomenon (e.g.
grief is universally
experienced).
Phenomenological Research

The basic purpose of

phenomenology is to reduce
individual experiences with a
phenomenon to a description of
the universal essence (van
Manen, 1990, p. 177).
Phenomenological Research
The researcher identify a
phenomenon. This human
experience may be phenomena
such as insomnia, being left
out, anger, grief, or undergoing
coronary artery bypass surgery
(Moustakas, 1994).
Phenomenological Research

The researcher then collects

data from persons who have
experienced the phenomenon,
and develops a composite
description of the essence of
the experience for all of the
individuals.
Phenomenological Research

This description consists of

"what" they experienced and
"how" they experienced it
(Moustakas, 1994).
Phenomenological Research
It draws heavily on the writings
of the German mathematician
Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)
and those who expanded on his
views, such as Heidegger,
Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty
(Spiegelberg, 1982).
Phenomenological Research

Phenomenology is popular in
the social and health sciences,
especially in sociology,
psychology, nursing, and
education.
4 Philosophical Perspectives in
Phenomenology:

1. A return to the traditional

tasks of philosophy - by the
end of the 19th century,
philosophy had become limited
to ''scientism."
4 Philosophical Perspectives in
Phenomenology:
2. A philosophy without
presuppositions -
phenomenology's approach is to
suspend all judgments about
what is real, founded on a more
certain basis. This suspension is
called "epoche" by Husserl.
4 Philosophical Perspectives in
Phenomenology:
3. The intentionality of
consciousness - This idea is that
consciousness is always directed
toward an object. Reality of an
object, then, is inextricably
related to one's consciousness
of it.
4 Philosophical Perspectives in
Phenomenology:
Thus, reality, according to
Husserl, is not divided into
subjects and objects, but into the
dual nature of both subjects and
objects as they appear in
consciousness.
4 Philosophical Perspectives in
Phenomenology:
4. The refusal of the subject-
object dichotomy. This theme
flows naturally from the
intentionality of consciousness.
The reality of an object is only
perceived within the meaning of
the experience of an individual.
Types of Phenomenology

1. Hermeneutic
phenomenology (van Marren,
1990)
2. Empirical, transcendental,
or psychological
phenomenology (Moustakas,
1994)
Hermeneutic Phenomenology

Is oriented toward lived

experience (phenomenology)
and interpreting the "texts" of
life (hermeneutics) (van
Marren, 1990, p. 4 ).
Hermeneutic Phenomenology

Researchers first turn to a

phenomenon, an "abiding
concern“ (e.g., reading, running,
driving, mothering).
Hermeneutic Phenomenology

Researchers reflect on essential

themes, what constitutes the
nature of this lived experience.
Hermeneutic Phenomenology
Researchers write a description
of the phenomenon, maintaining
a strong relation to the topic of
inquiry and balancing the parts
of the writing to the whole.
Hermeneutic Phenomenology
Phenomenology is not only a
description, but it is also seen as
an interpretive process in which
the researcher makes an
interpretation (i.e., the
researcher "mediates" between
different meanings; van Marren,
1990, p. 26).
Transcendental or Psychological Phenomenology

Is focused less on the

interpretations of the researcher
and more on a description of the
experiences of participants.
Transcendental or Psychological Phenomenology

Focuses on one of Husserl's

concepts, epoche (or
bracketing), in which
investigators set aside their
experiences, as much as
possible, to take a fresh
perspective toward the
phenomenon.
Transcendental or Psychological Phenomenology

'‘Transcendental" means ''in

which everything is perceived
freshly, as if for the first time"
(Moustakas, 1994, p. 34).
Transcendental or Psychological Phenomenology

Besides bracketing, empirical,

transcendental phenomenology
draws on the Duquesne Studies in
Phenomenological Psychology
(e.g., Giorgi, 1985) and the data
analysis procedures of Van Kaam
(1966) and Colaizzi (1978).
Moustakas’ Procedures
1) Identifying a phenomenon to study;
2) Bracketing out one's experiences;
3) Collecting data from several persons
who have experienced the
phenomenon;
4) Analyzing the data by reducing the
information to significant statements or
quotes;
5) Combining the statements into themes;
Moustakas’ Procedures
6) Developing a textural description of the
experiences of the persons (what
participants experienced), and a
structural description of their
experiences (how they experienced it in
terms of the conditions, situations, or
context); and
7) Conveying an overall essence of the
experience through a combination of the
textural and structural descriptions.
Procedures for Conducting Phenomenological Research
1) The researcher determines if the research
problem is best examined using a
phenomenological approach. The type of
problem best suited for this form of research is
one in which it is important to understand
several individuals' common or shared
experiences of a phenomenon. It would be
important to understand these common
experiences in order to develop practices or
policies, or to develop a deeper understanding
about the features of the phenomenon.
Procedures for Conducting Phenomenological Research

2) A phenomenon of interest to study, such

as anger, professionalism, what it means
to be underweight, or what it means to be
a wrestler, is identified. Moustakas
(1994) provides numerous examples of
phenomena that have been studied.
Procedures for Conducting Phenomenological Research
3) The researcher recognizes and specifies
the broad philosophical assumptions of
phenomenology. For example, one could
write about the combination of objective
reality and individual experiences. These
lived experiences are furthermore
"conscious" and directed toward an
object. To fully describe how participants
view the phenomenon, researchers must
bracket out, as much as possible, their
own experiences.
Procedures for Conducting Phenomenological Research

4) Data are collected from the individuals

who have experienced the phenomenon.
Often data collection in
phenomenological studies consists of in-
depth interviews and multiple interviews
with participants. Polkinghorne (1989)
recommends that researchers interview
from 5 to 25 individuals who have all
experienced the phenomenon.
Procedures for Conducting Phenomenological Research

5) Other forms of data may also be

collected, such as observations, journals,
art, poetry, music, and other forms of art.
Van Manen (1990) mentions taped
conversations, formally written
responses, accounts of vicarious
experiences of drama, films, poetry, and
novels.
Procedures for Conducting Phenomenological Research
6) Phenomenological data analysis steps are
generally similar for all psychological
phenomenologists who discuss the methods
(Moustakas, 1994; Polkinghorne, 1989). Building
on the data from the first and second research
questions, data analysts go through the data (e.g.,
interview transcriptions) and highlight "significant
statements," sentences, or quotes that provide an
understanding of how the participants experienced
the phenomenon. Moustakas (1994) calls this step
horizonalization. Next, the researcher develops
clusters of meaning from these significant
statements into themes.
Procedures for Conducting Phenomenological Research

7) These significant statements and themes are

then used to write a description of what the
participants experienced (textural description).
They are also used to write a description of the
context or setting that influenced how the
participants experienced the phenomenon
(structural description). Moustakas (1994) adds
a further step: Researchers also write about their
own experiences and the context and situations
that have influenced their experiences.
Procedures for Conducting Phenomenological Research
7) From the structural and textural descriptions, the
researcher then writes a composite description that
presents the essence of the phenomenon, called the
essential, invariant structure (or essence). Primarily
this passage focuses on the common experiences of
the participants. For example, it means that all
experiences have an underlying structure (grief is
the same whether the loved one is a puppy, a
parakeet, or a child). It is a descriptive passage, a
long paragraph or two, and the reader should come
away from the phenomenology with the feeling, “I
understand better what it is like for someone to
experience that" (Polkinghorne, 1989, p. 46).
 Challenges

The participants in the study need to be

carefully chosen to be individuals who have
all experienced the phenomenon in question,
so that the researcher, in the end, can forge a
common understanding. Bracketing personal
experiences may be difficult for the
researcher to implement.
 Challenges
An interpretive approach to phenomenology
would signal this as an impossibility (van
Manen, 1990)—for the researcher to become
separated from the text. Perhaps we need a new
definition of epoche or bracketing, such as
suspending our understandings in a reflective
move that ·cultivates curiosity (LeVasseur,
2003). Thus, the researcher needs to decide
how and in what way his or her personal
understandings will be introduced into the
study.
 Grounded Theory
The intent of a grounded theory study is to move
beyond description and to generate or discover a
theory, an abstract analytical schema of a
process (or action or interaction, Strauss &
Corbin, 1998).
 Grounded Theory
Has gained popularity in fields such as
sociology, nursing, education, and psychology,
as well as in other social science fields.
 Grounded Theory
This qualitative design was developed in
sociology in 1967 by two researchers, Barney
Glaser and Anselm Strauss, who felt that theories
used in research were often inappropriate and
ill-suited for participants under study.
Grounded Theory
 Grounded Theory
Participants in the study would all have experienced
the process, and the development of the theory might
help explain practice or provide a framework for
further research. A key idea is that this theory-
development does not come "off the shelf," but rather
is generated or "grounded" in data from participants
who have experienced the process (Strauss & Corbin,
1998).
 Grounded Theory
Thus, grounded theory is a qualitative research
design in which the inquirer generates a general
explanation (a theory) of a process, action, or
interaction shaped by the views of a large
number of participants (Strauss & Corbin,
1998).
 Grounded Theory
In contrast to the a priori, theoretical
orientations in sociology, grounded theorists held
that theories should be "grounded" in data from
the field, especially in the actions, interactions,
and social processes of people.
 Grounded Theory
Grounded theory provided for the generation of
a theory (complete with a diagram and
hypotheses) of actions, interactions, or processes
through interrelating categories of information
based on data collected from individual
 Grounded Theory
More recently, Charmaz
(2006) has advocated for a
constructivist grounded
theory, thus introducing yet
another perspective into the
conversation about
Kathy Charmaz (1939-2020) developed
The constructivist grounded theory
procedures.
 Grounded Theory
Another recent grounded
theory perspective is that of
Clarke (2005) who, along
with Charmaz, seeks to
reclaim grounded theory
from its "positivist
underpinnings"
Adele Clarke, Professor Emerita, University of California,
Berkeley
 Grounded Theory
Clarke, however, goes further than Charmaz,
suggesting that social "situations" should form
our unit of analysis in grounded theory and
that three sociological modes can be useful in
analyzing these situations-situational, social
world/arenas, and positional cartographic
maps for collecting and analyzing qualitative
data.
 Grounded Theory
Clarke further expands grounded theory, relying
on postmodern perspectives (i.e., the political
nature of research and interpretation, reflexivity
on the part of researchers, a recognition of
problems of representing information, questions
of legitimacy and authority, and repositioning the
researcher away from the "all knowing analyst"
to the "acknowledged participant").
 Grounded Theory
Clarke frequently turns to the postmodern,
post-structural writer Michel Foucault (1972)
to help turn the grounded theory discourse.
 Types of Grounded Theory Studies

1) Systematic procedures of Strauss and

Corbin (1990, 1998)
2) Constructivist approach of Charmaz
(2005, 2006)
 Systematic Procedures

The investigator seeks to systematically develop

a theory that explains process, action, or
interaction on a topic (e.g., the process of
developing a curriculum).
 Systematic Procedures
The researcher typically conducts 20 to 30
interviews based on several visits "to the field"
to collect interview data to saturate the categories
(or find information that continues to add to them
until no more can be found).
 Systematic Procedures
A category represents a unit of information
composed of events, happenings, and instances
(Strauss & Corbin, 1990).
 Systematic Procedures
A category represents a unit of information
composed of events, happenings, and instances
(Strauss & Corbin, 1990).
 Systematic Procedures
The participants interviewed are theoretically
chosen (called theoretical sampling) to help the
researcher best form the theory.
 Systematic Procedures
How many passes one makes to the field depends
on whether the categories of information become
saturated and whether the theory is elaborated in all
of its complexity. This process of taking
information from data collection and comparing it
to emerging categories is called the constant
comparative method of data analysis.
 Systematic Procedures
The researcher begins with open coding, coding the
data for its major categories of information. From
this coding, axial coding emerges in which the
researcher identifies one open coding category to
focus on (called the core phenomenon), and then
goes back to the data and create categories around
this core phenomenon.
 Systematic Procedures
Strauss and Corbin (1990) prescribe the types of
categories identified around the core
phenomenon. They consist of causal conditions
(what factors caused the core phenomenon),
strategies (actions taken in response to the core
phenomenon), contextual and intervening
conditions (broad and specific situational factors
that influence the strategies), and consequences
(outcomes from using the strategies).
Systematic Procedures
Systematic Procedures
Systematic Procedures
 Systematic Procedures
The researcher begins with open coding, coding the
data for its major categories of information. From
this coding, axial coding emerges in which the
researcher identifies one open coding category to
focus on (called the core phenomenon), and then
goes back to the data and create categories around
this core phenomenon.
Grounded Theory
Grounded Theory