Grounded theory for undergraduates

1. Grounded theoryfor undergraduates Alasdair Gordon-FinlaysonSchool of Natural Sciences & PsychologyLiverpool John Moores University

2. So - who’s doing what? • A quick data-gathering exercise…

3. My context • History • Inherited from previous lecturer who had little experience of qualitative research • Part of year-long research methods module • Teaching • Five 2-hour lectures • Five 1-hour workshops • GT (this year scrapped additional DA section) • Assessment • 2,500-word research report on any topic(plus proposal) – approx. 6 weeks • Two exam questions (1 hour total)

4. Why teach GT to undergraduates? • A relatively common methodology (especially across disciplinary boundaries) • Highlights some interesting epistemological debates • Method perhaps more easily taught than some others • Reflexive & analytic • Easy to tie in to subject areas (health, social, organisational)

5. Caveats? • Current ongoing methodological debates might cause confusion • Epistemological concerns (how positivist is grounded theory?) • Difficult to teach solely via lectures, workshops a great boon (but resourcing issues of course) • Ian Parker (2005): “Beware the false promise of grounded theory!” – and other such misconceived criticisms

6. Teaching GT • Ideal: Hands-on sessions with real data • Will always be slightly artificial given time constraints • Can student have collected their own data? • How far can students get with the analysis during workshops? • Multiple workshop sessions with homework • Assessment – How real can you make it? • Marking a coding exercise vs full research project • Some early decisions need to be made…

7. Characteristics of GT • Production of theory that is grounded in the data gathered • Data collection & analysis undertaken simultaneously • Theoretical sampling • Memo-writing • Constant comparison • Delay of literature review

8. Describing grounded theory • Theoretical • Theoretical Sensitivity, Sampling, Saturation • Analytical • Analysis vs. description • Constant comparison • Cyclical • Coding, data collection, coding, data collection… • Delayed lit review

9. Decisions, decisions (I) • Glaser vs Strauss… vs Charmaz …or Clarke, or others… • Positivist vs Interpretivist vs Constructivist? • To what extent are you actually going to address this? • Glaser vs Strauss very bitter – but interesting! • Flick’s combination of both G & S (also C) perhaps easiest to teach practically • Strauss & Corbin clearest guidelines (Basics), but it’s this that Glaser objects to • Also 3rd ed now out, quite different • Difficulties getting hold of Glaser’s texts

10. Coding for grounded theory data (I) • Open coding • Descriptive – labelling text • Constructed vs. in vivo code titles • Focused coding • Conceptual – building open codes • Gathering more material for each idea • Axial coding / Categorising • Category = a coherent group of concepts • Properties of categories identified • Relationships to other axial codes noted • Memo writing vital here • Diagramming helpful for some (me!)

11. Open coding:

13. Diagramming categories

14. Coding for grounded theory data (II) • Selective (Strauss) / Theoretical (Glaser) coding • E.g. identifying a core category • Central to the theory, present for all Ps, abstract, explanatory • Modelling can be very useful here • Theory building • Substantive (makes sense in the context of the inquiry) • Analytic & explanatory, not just descriptive • Answers the research question! Alternative ref: cf “Theoretical coding” in Flick (2002)

15. Coding issues • Confusion of terminology between various coding models – need to be clear with students • e.g. see Walker, D. & Myrick, F. (2006) for clarification on terminology & process btw Glaser and Strauss • In vivo vs ‘constructed’ code titles… first step from description to analysis • Balancing pedagogic ease vs. coding fetishism!!! “…researchers should be wary, for the significance of interpretation, narrative and reflection can be undermined in the procedures of grounded theory.” (Thomas & James 2006)

16. Memo Writing • The key to grounded theory analysis • If it doesn’t get written down, it’s as good as gone • Memos as developing of ideas across lifetime of project • Students need encouragement – and perhaps also practice – in memo-writing • Stress that memos are: • Tentative • Private • To be revisited & re-worked

17. Early memo Open Code Memo: 14 November“A few close confidants” Shazia talks about “close” friends, which would also seem to imply “distant” friends (she says “acquaintances”) – fits when she talks about actively keeping some people “away” from her. This idea of “closeness” vs “distance” doesn’t seem unusual at all, it’s a fairly common metaphor, so interesting to keep an eye on where this goes.

18. Later memo… Category Memo: 9 Jan“Friendship careers” …I think here [maintenance] is where the link to defining friendship is made... because some of what a friend 'is' feeds in, I'm guessing, to this job of maintenance. Deborah talking about how she just picks things up with her old school friends even if she hasn't seen them for a while – it sound very different to Louise. Is this contrast a property of ‘maintaining old friendships’? Was Deborah 'better friends' with her old mates than Louise with hers? I don't really think this is the case. So - what's the difference? Perhaps they expect friendship to be different things - that what Deborah is happy to call friendship is not what Louise would call friendship, so actually they're getting the same ‘amount’ of relationship (ack! surely a better way of saying that?!) but interpreting it in different ways. My feeling right now is that this “getting an amount of relationship” is probably a blind alley. I'll keep an eye out for the way that they talk about it, see if it comes up…

19. Even later… Theory memo: 12 Feb Our relationships with our friends form a taxonomy of ‘types’ of friendship (“bezzie mates”, “our posse”, “classmates”, etc). These types vary specifically in regards to (a) personal proximity (e.g. “close friends”) and (b) frequency of contact. Maintenance of these relationships has to take this into account: close friends that are now only seen during university vacations require maintenance in a different way to more distant but day-to-day relationships with people in our research methods workshop. Without active maintenance, less frequent types of friendship are likely to atrophy, while more frequent friendships that are not actively maintained can lead to inter-personal friction and “falling out”. However, the higher frequency contact of this type means that it’s more likely that one is going to attend to that relationship and not let it go too far.

20. Decisions, decisions (II) • Full vs. Abbreviated • Most important factor probably time available • Abbreviated GT lends itself to undergraduate work because of time issues, mainly • A priori sample selection • Substantive, not formal, theorising • However, abbr GT not well documented in the literature (but see Willig 2001) • Is abbr GT still GT?

21. Things my students struggle with • Not moving on from fine-grained coding (spending hours coding line-by-line) • Not doing enough memo-writing • Not fully explicating categories (properties, etc) • Surface / descriptive work vs more in-depth analytic work in their research projects • Time!!!

22. Things my students are good at • Coming up with interesting research questions! • Model-building • Substantive theorising

23. Things my students love • Interviewing! • “I feel like I’m actually doing psychology for the first time in my degree” • The chance to explore (remember?) their passions in psychology

24. Resources – Primary Texts Corbin, J. & Strauss, A. (2008). Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques & Procedures for Developing GT, 3rd Edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing GT: A Practical Guide Through Qualitative Analysis. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Strauss, A. & Corbin, J. (1990,1998 2nd Ed). Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques & Procedures for Developing GT. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Glaser, B. (1992). Basics of Grounded Theory Analysis. Mill Valley: Sociology Press. Glaser, B. & Strauss, A. (1967). The Discovery of GT: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago, Aldine.

25. Resources – Chapters Charmaz, K. (2003). Grounded Theory. In Smith, J.A. (Ed.) (2003). Qualitative Psychology: A Practical Guide to Research Methods, (Chapter 5). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Willig, C. (2001). Grounded Theory. In Introducing Qualitative Research in Psychology: Adventures in Theory & Method, (Chapter 3). Maidenhead: OUP. Langdridge, D. (2004). Grounded Theory. In Introduction to Research Methods & Data Analysis in Psychology, (Chapter 16). Harlow: Pearson Education. …and of course… Gordon-Finlayson, A.R. (in press). Grounded Theory. In Forrester, M. (Ed.) Doing Qualitative Research in Psychology: A Practical Guide. London: Sage Publications.

26. Other Refs Flick, U. (2002). An Introduction to Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Parker, I. (2005). Qualitative Psychology: Introducing Radical Research. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Thomas, G. & James, D. (2006). Reinventing grounded theory: Some questions about theory, ground and discovery. British Educational Research Journal, 32 (6), 767-795. Walker, D. & Myrick, F. (2006). Grounded theory: An exploration of process and procedure. Qualitative Health Research, 16 (4), 547-559.