Talk:Grounded theory

I Hans Thulesius have the copyright to the article on Grounded theory previously posted on http://www.groundedtheory.com/dcforum/general/204.html#3 The article is a slightly edited version of the chapter on grounded theory from my thesis from 2003 and it is OK to publish it on Wikpedia.

Thanks!

Great editing by Edward who guarded copyright as a knight and in the middle of the (k)night improved the look of the article

Hans

POV warning and academic discussion (dispute)

Hi, good that there is an article about Grounded Theory now here. There is only one problem, and that is the reason I put the POV wrarning sticker on in: the article only deals with Glasers version of Grounded Theory and dismisses Strauss & Corbins version as "just standard QDA". I work with the Strauss & Corbin version of Grounded Theory and would argue that Strauss/Corbin is the true continuation of a systematic paradigma to create theory from data, whereas Glaser is only a pop science school (sorry to say that), labelling creativity and intuition without any systematic or quality standard as scientific method. On the other hand, I don't see a good way to improve this article without rewriting it completly. Maybe we should have a short Grounded Theory article with the history and "The Discovery of Grounded Theory" and move this one to Grounded theory (Glaser), and write another one about Grounded Theory (Strauss). -- till we ☼☽ | Talk 20:43, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

academic discussion part two

Nice to get a reaction to the article and fun with some academic discussion! I have rewritten my contribution a little to make it more neutral.

Background and why am I a Glaser disciple?

1. Barney Glaser came to my Swedish town (Växjö) in 2000 lecturing when I had to get the qualitative data for my thesis straight. Eventually his books and coaching helped me a great deal.

2. I had three years earlier started with the Strauss & Corbin book which promised a lot but I got stuck on the 14 rules of how to write memos and the axial coding which confused me so I gave up GT.

3. The book Doing Grounded Theory - Issues and Discussions (1998) was a gold mine. I learned that memoing was totally free and creativity exploded. Thereafter the sorting and rewriting stages put my data into a theory that fit and worked to explain what was going on in end-of-life cancer care - the balancing between cure and comfort care and the balancing of words when disclosing bad news, and a lot of other balancing acitivitites. I used the GT for my PhD cover story as a model, and my thesis was eventually selected Family Medicine Dissertation of the year 2003 in Sweden. The main argument was that it was methodologically sound.

Now I can assure you that If you follow a Glaserian GT you will see a complete system of careful methodological steps but without detailing these steps in order to:

1. respect each individuals personal recipe (see Doing GT chptr 4) with optimal creativity, and 2. staying open to the serendipity and circular sequencing of the method allowing concepts to emerge instead of forcing received concepts onto the data.

This makes the method difficult for researchers trained in a deductive tradition (which most of us are) and it takes time to learn it. And dr Glaser admits that GT is not for everyone. And for sure many researchers in the scientific literature claiming to have used GT havent followed many of the steps from open coding to memoing to selective coding to sorting back to memoing and eventually to writing and rewriting etc. Most have just generated a few concepts, a few but not many have found a core variable, and a minority have an integrated theory around a core that explains the behavior of participants in a certain field of interest. If your view on Glaser GT comes from reading claimed GTs that used the buzz label to justify their (mediocre) QDA work then I can understand you.

Glaser's critique of Strauss version of "the constant comparitive method" (what GT was called from the beginning) is that Strauss narrows down and forces the use of a standardized set of theoretical codes. Also Strauss doesnt really mind using preformed models for analysis. Thus the openness of the method is lost. This doesnt necessarily make it bad but it derails heavily from what was outlined in the Discovery book from 1967 and also in Theoretical Sensitivity (1978). The rigor of GT is about staying open as much as possible. This means that preformed hypotheses are forbidden while Strauss & Corbin leaves a door open and actually suggest the use of only a few theoretical models while there exist several hundred. Strauss' method is not classic GT, and Glaser calls it "full conceptual description". But it sure can produce good qualitative data analysis, Glaser doesnt argue with that and me neither.

Finally, Glaser is alive and still develops the method in continous teaching all over the world and in five methodology books since Discovery. He is at the moment writing a sixth GT method book on theoretical coding of which I have read a few chapters that surely makes some central GT issues clearer.

I have done grounded theory for some years. Teaching and translating the Doing book into Swedish and working on my third theory and yet I'm still fascinated with how much more I have to learn. And I learn more every day. And as long as dr Glaser is around I will be happy to get GT directly from the horses mouth which is great fun and inspiring.

Hans