data analysis qualitative research grounded theory

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Grounded theory research: A design framework for novice researchers

Ylona chun tie.

1 Nursing and Midwifery, College of Healthcare Sciences, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD, Australia

Melanie Birks

Karen francis.

2 College of Health and Medicine, University of Tasmania, Australia, Hobart, TAS, Australia

Background:

Grounded theory is a well-known methodology employed in many research studies. Qualitative and quantitative data generation techniques can be used in a grounded theory study. Grounded theory sets out to discover or construct theory from data, systematically obtained and analysed using comparative analysis. While grounded theory is inherently flexible, it is a complex methodology. Thus, novice researchers strive to understand the discourse and the practical application of grounded theory concepts and processes.

The aim of this article is to provide a contemporary research framework suitable to inform a grounded theory study.

This article provides an overview of grounded theory illustrated through a graphic representation of the processes and methods employed in conducting research using this methodology. The framework is presented as a diagrammatic representation of a research design and acts as a visual guide for the novice grounded theory researcher.

Discussion:

As grounded theory is not a linear process, the framework illustrates the interplay between the essential grounded theory methods and iterative and comparative actions involved. Each of the essential methods and processes that underpin grounded theory are defined in this article.

Conclusion:

Rather than an engagement in philosophical discussion or a debate of the different genres that can be used in grounded theory, this article illustrates how a framework for a research study design can be used to guide and inform the novice nurse researcher undertaking a study using grounded theory. Research findings and recommendations can contribute to policy or knowledge development, service provision and can reform thinking to initiate change in the substantive area of inquiry.

Introduction

The aim of all research is to advance, refine and expand a body of knowledge, establish facts and/or reach new conclusions using systematic inquiry and disciplined methods. 1 The research design is the plan or strategy researchers use to answer the research question, which is underpinned by philosophy, methodology and methods. 2 Birks 3 defines philosophy as ‘a view of the world encompassing the questions and mechanisms for finding answers that inform that view’ (p. 18). Researchers reflect their philosophical beliefs and interpretations of the world prior to commencing research. Methodology is the research design that shapes the selection of, and use of, particular data generation and analysis methods to answer the research question. 4 While a distinction between positivist research and interpretivist research occurs at the paradigm level, each methodology has explicit criteria for the collection, analysis and interpretation of data. 2 Grounded theory (GT) is a structured, yet flexible methodology. This methodology is appropriate when little is known about a phenomenon; the aim being to produce or construct an explanatory theory that uncovers a process inherent to the substantive area of inquiry. 5 – 7 One of the defining characteristics of GT is that it aims to generate theory that is grounded in the data. The following section provides an overview of GT – the history, main genres and essential methods and processes employed in the conduct of a GT study. This summary provides a foundation for a framework to demonstrate the interplay between the methods and processes inherent in a GT study as presented in the sections that follow.

Glaser and Strauss are recognised as the founders of grounded theory. Strauss was conversant in symbolic interactionism and Glaser in descriptive statistics. 8 – 10 Glaser and Strauss originally worked together in a study examining the experience of terminally ill patients who had differing knowledge of their health status. Some of these suspected they were dying and tried to confirm or disconfirm their suspicions. Others tried to understand by interpreting treatment by care providers and family members. Glaser and Strauss examined how the patients dealt with the knowledge they were dying and the reactions of healthcare staff caring for these patients. Throughout this collaboration, Glaser and Strauss questioned the appropriateness of using a scientific method of verification for this study. During this investigation, they developed the constant comparative method, a key element of grounded theory, while generating a theory of dying first described in Awareness of Dying (1965). The constant comparative method is deemed an original way of organising and analysing qualitative data.

Glaser and Strauss subsequently went on to write The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research (1967). This seminal work explained how theory could be generated from data inductively. This process challenged the traditional method of testing or refining theory through deductive testing. Grounded theory provided an outlook that questioned the view of the time that quantitative methodology is the only valid, unbiased way to determine truths about the world. 11 Glaser and Strauss 5 challenged the belief that qualitative research lacked rigour and detailed the method of comparative analysis that enables the generation of theory. After publishing The Discovery of Grounded Theory , Strauss and Glaser went on to write independently, expressing divergent viewpoints in the application of grounded theory methods.

Glaser produced his book Theoretical Sensitivity (1978) and Strauss went on to publish Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists (1987). Strauss and Corbin’s 12 publication Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques resulted in a rebuttal by Glaser 13 over their application of grounded theory methods. However, philosophical perspectives have changed since Glaser’s positivist version and Strauss and Corbin’s post-positivism stance. 14 Grounded theory has since seen the emergence of additional philosophical perspectives that have influenced a change in methodological development over time. 15

Subsequent generations of grounded theorists have positioned themselves along a philosophical continuum, from Strauss and Corbin’s 12 theoretical perspective of symbolic interactionism, through to Charmaz’s 16 constructivist perspective. However, understanding how to position oneself philosophically can challenge novice researchers. Birks and Mills 6 provide a contemporary understanding of GT in their book Grounded theory: A Practical Guide. These Australian researchers have written in a way that appeals to the novice researcher. It is the contemporary writing, the way Birks and Mills present a non-partisan approach to GT that support the novice researcher to understand the philosophical and methodological concepts integral in conducting research. The development of GT is important to understand prior to selecting an approach that aligns with the researcher’s philosophical position and the purpose of the research study. As the research progresses, seminal texts are referred back to time and again as understanding of concepts increases, much like the iterative processes inherent in the conduct of a GT study.

Genres: traditional, evolved and constructivist grounded theory

Grounded theory has several distinct methodological genres: traditional GT associated with Glaser; evolved GT associated with Strauss, Corbin and Clarke; and constructivist GT associated with Charmaz. 6 , 17 Each variant is an extension and development of the original GT by Glaser and Strauss. The first of these genres is known as traditional or classic GT. Glaser 18 acknowledged that the goal of traditional GT is to generate a conceptual theory that accounts for a pattern of behaviour that is relevant and problematic for those involved. The second genre, evolved GT, is founded on symbolic interactionism and stems from work associated with Strauss, Corbin and Clarke. Symbolic interactionism is a sociological perspective that relies on the symbolic meaning people ascribe to the processes of social interaction. Symbolic interactionism addresses the subjective meaning people place on objects, behaviours or events based on what they believe is true. 19 , 20 Constructivist GT, the third genre developed and explicated by Charmaz, a symbolic interactionist, has its roots in constructivism. 8 , 16 Constructivist GT’s methodological underpinnings focus on how participants’ construct meaning in relation to the area of inquiry. 16 A constructivist co-constructs experience and meanings with participants. 21 While there are commonalities across all genres of GT, there are factors that distinguish differences between the approaches including the philosophical position of the researcher; the use of literature; and the approach to coding, analysis and theory development. Following on from Glaser and Strauss, several versions of GT have ensued.

Grounded theory represents both a method of inquiry and a resultant product of that inquiry. 7 , 22 Glaser and Holton 23 define GT as ‘a set of integrated conceptual hypotheses systematically generated to produce an inductive theory about a substantive area’ (p. 43). Strauss and Corbin 24 define GT as ‘theory that was derived from data, systematically gathered and analysed through the research process’ (p. 12). The researcher ‘begins with an area of study and allows the theory to emerge from the data’ (p. 12). Charmaz 16 defines GT as ‘a method of conducting qualitative research that focuses on creating conceptual frameworks or theories through building inductive analysis from the data’ (p. 187). However, Birks and Mills 6 refer to GT as a process by which theory is generated from the analysis of data. Theory is not discovered; rather, theory is constructed by the researcher who views the world through their own particular lens.

Research process

Before commencing any research study, the researcher must have a solid understanding of the research process. A well-developed outline of the study and an understanding of the important considerations in designing and undertaking a GT study are essential if the goals of the research are to be achieved. While it is important to have an understanding of how a methodology has developed, in order to move forward with research, a novice can align with a grounded theorist and follow an approach to GT. Using a framework to inform a research design can be a useful modus operandi.

The following section provides insight into the process of undertaking a GT research study. Figure 1 is a framework that summarises the interplay and movement between methods and processes that underpin the generation of a GT. As can be seen from this framework, and as detailed in the discussion that follows, the process of doing a GT research study is not linear, rather it is iterative and recursive.

Research design framework: summary of the interplay between the essential grounded theory methods and processes.

Grounded theory research involves the meticulous application of specific methods and processes. Methods are ‘systematic modes, procedures or tools used for collection and analysis of data’. 25 While GT studies can commence with a variety of sampling techniques, many commence with purposive sampling, followed by concurrent data generation and/or collection and data analysis, through various stages of coding, undertaken in conjunction with constant comparative analysis, theoretical sampling and memoing. Theoretical sampling is employed until theoretical saturation is reached. These methods and processes create an unfolding, iterative system of actions and interactions inherent in GT. 6 , 16 The methods interconnect and inform the recurrent elements in the research process as shown by the directional flow of the arrows and the encompassing brackets in Figure 1 . The framework denotes the process is both iterative and dynamic and is not one directional. Grounded theory methods are discussed in the following section.

Purposive sampling

As presented in Figure 1 , initial purposive sampling directs the collection and/or generation of data. Researchers purposively select participants and/or data sources that can answer the research question. 5 , 7 , 16 , 21 Concurrent data generation and/or data collection and analysis is fundamental to GT research design. 6 The researcher collects, codes and analyses this initial data before further data collection/generation is undertaken. Purposeful sampling provides the initial data that the researcher analyses. As will be discussed, theoretical sampling then commences from the codes and categories developed from the first data set. Theoretical sampling is used to identify and follow clues from the analysis, fill gaps, clarify uncertainties, check hunches and test interpretations as the study progresses.

Constant comparative analysis

Constant comparative analysis is an analytical process used in GT for coding and category development. This process commences with the first data generated or collected and pervades the research process as presented in Figure 1 . Incidents are identified in the data and coded. 6 The initial stage of analysis compares incident to incident in each code. Initial codes are then compared to other codes. Codes are then collapsed into categories. This process means the researcher will compare incidents in a category with previous incidents, in both the same and different categories. 5 Future codes are compared and categories are compared with other categories. New data is then compared with data obtained earlier during the analysis phases. This iterative process involves inductive and deductive thinking. 16 Inductive, deductive and abductive reasoning can also be used in data analysis. 26

Constant comparative analysis generates increasingly more abstract concepts and theories through inductive processes. 16 In addition, abduction, defined as ‘a form of reasoning that begins with an examination of the data and the formation of a number of hypotheses that are then proved or disproved during the process of analysis … aids inductive conceptualization’. 6 Theoretical sampling coupled with constant comparative analysis raises the conceptual levels of data analysis and directs ongoing data collection or generation. 6

The constant comparative technique is used to find consistencies and differences, with the aim of continually refining concepts and theoretically relevant categories. This continual comparative iterative process that encompasses GT research sets it apart from a purely descriptive analysis. 8

Memo writing is an analytic process considered essential ‘in ensuring quality in grounded theory’. 6 Stern 27 offers the analogy that if data are the building blocks of the developing theory, then memos are the ‘mortar’ (p. 119). Memos are the storehouse of ideas generated and documented through interacting with data. 28 Thus, memos are reflective interpretive pieces that build a historic audit trail to document ideas, events and the thought processes inherent in the research process and developing thinking of the analyst. 6 Memos provide detailed records of the researchers’ thoughts, feelings and intuitive contemplations. 6

Lempert 29 considers memo writing crucial as memos prompt researchers to analyse and code data and develop codes into categories early in the coding process. Memos detail why and how decisions made related to sampling, coding, collapsing of codes, making of new codes, separating codes, producing a category and identifying relationships abstracted to a higher level of analysis. 6 Thus, memos are informal analytic notes about the data and the theoretical connections between categories. 23 Memoing is an ongoing activity that builds intellectual assets, fosters analytic momentum and informs the GT findings. 6 , 10

Generating/collecting data

A hallmark of GT is concurrent data generation/collection and analysis. In GT, researchers may utilise both qualitative and quantitative data as espoused by Glaser’s dictum; ‘all is data’. 30 While interviews are a common method of generating data, data sources can include focus groups, questionnaires, surveys, transcripts, letters, government reports, documents, grey literature, music, artefacts, videos, blogs and memos. 9 Elicited data are produced by participants in response to, or directed by, the researcher whereas extant data includes data that is already available such as documents and published literature. 6 , 31 While this is one interpretation of how elicited data are generated, other approaches to grounded theory recognise the agency of participants in the co-construction of data with the researcher. The relationship the researcher has with the data, how it is generated and collected, will determine the value it contributes to the development of the final GT. 6 The significance of this relationship extends into data analysis conducted by the researcher through the various stages of coding.

Coding is an analytical process used to identify concepts, similarities and conceptual reoccurrences in data. Coding is the pivotal link between collecting or generating data and developing a theory that explains the data. Charmaz 10 posits,

codes rely on interaction between researchers and their data. Codes consist of short labels that we construct as we interact with the data. Something kinaesthetic occurs when we are coding; we are mentally and physically active in the process. (p. 5)

In GT, coding can be categorised into iterative phases. Traditional, evolved and constructivist GT genres use different terminology to explain each coding phase ( Table 1 ).

Comparison of coding terminology in traditional, evolved and constructivist grounded theory.

Adapted from Birks and Mills. 6

Coding terminology in evolved GT refers to open (a procedure for developing categories of information), axial (an advanced procedure for interconnecting the categories) and selective coding (procedure for building a storyline from core codes that connects the categories), producing a discursive set of theoretical propositions. 6 , 12 , 32 Constructivist grounded theorists refer to initial, focused and theoretical coding. 9 Birks and Mills 6 use the terms initial, intermediate and advanced coding that link to low, medium and high-level conceptual analysis and development. The coding terms devised by Birks and Mills 6 were used for Figure 1 ; however, these can be altered to reflect the coding terminology used in the respective GT genres selected by the researcher.

Initial coding

Initial coding of data is the preliminary step in GT data analysis. 6 , 9 The purpose of initial coding is to start the process of fracturing the data to compare incident to incident and to look for similarities and differences in beginning patterns in the data. In initial coding, the researcher inductively generates as many codes as possible from early data. 16 Important words or groups of words are identified and labelled. In GT, codes identify social and psychological processes and actions as opposed to themes. Charmaz 16 emphasises keeping codes as similar to the data as possible and advocates embedding actions in the codes in an iterative coding process. Saldaña 33 agrees that codes that denote action, which he calls process codes, can be used interchangeably with gerunds (verbs ending in ing ). In vivo codes are often verbatim quotes from the participants’ words and are often used as the labels to capture the participant’s words as representative of a broader concept or process in the data. 6 Table 1 reflects variation in the terminology of codes used by grounded theorists.

Initial coding categorises and assigns meaning to the data, comparing incident-to-incident, labelling beginning patterns and beginning to look for comparisons between the codes. During initial coding, it is important to ask ‘what is this data a study of’. 18 What does the data assume, ‘suggest’ or ‘pronounce’ and ‘from whose point of view’ does this data come, whom does it represent or whose thoughts are they?. 16 What collectively might it represent? The process of documenting reactions, emotions and related actions enables researchers to explore, challenge and intensify their sensitivity to the data. 34 Early coding assists the researcher to identify the direction for further data gathering. After initial analysis, theoretical sampling is employed to direct collection of additional data that will inform the ‘developing theory’. 9 Initial coding advances into intermediate coding once categories begin to develop.

Theoretical sampling

The purpose of theoretical sampling is to allow the researcher to follow leads in the data by sampling new participants or material that provides relevant information. As depicted in Figure 1 , theoretical sampling is central to GT design, aids the evolving theory 5 , 7 , 16 and ensures the final developed theory is grounded in the data. 9 Theoretical sampling in GT is for the development of a theoretical category, as opposed to sampling for population representation. 10 Novice researchers need to acknowledge this difference if they are to achieve congruence within the methodology. Birks and Mills 6 define theoretical sampling as ‘the process of identifying and pursuing clues that arise during analysis in a grounded theory study’ (p. 68). During this process, additional information is sought to saturate categories under development. The analysis identifies relationships, highlights gaps in the existing data set and may reveal insight into what is not yet known. The exemplars in Box 1 highlight how theoretical sampling led to the inclusion of further data.

Examples of theoretical sampling.

Thus, theoretical sampling is used to focus and generate data to feed the iterative process of continual comparative analysis of the data. 6

Intermediate coding

Intermediate coding, identifying a core category, theoretical data saturation, constant comparative analysis, theoretical sensitivity and memoing occur in the next phase of the GT process. 6 Intermediate coding builds on the initial coding phase. Where initial coding fractures the data, intermediate coding begins to transform basic data into more abstract concepts allowing the theory to emerge from the data. During this analytic stage, a process of reviewing categories and identifying which ones, if any, can be subsumed beneath other categories occurs and the properties or dimension of the developed categories are refined. Properties refer to the characteristics that are common to all the concepts in the category and dimensions are the variations of a property. 37

At this stage, a core category starts to become evident as developed categories form around a core concept; relationships are identified between categories and the analysis is refined. Birks and Mills 6 affirm that diagramming can aid analysis in the intermediate coding phase. Grounded theorists interact closely with the data during this phase, continually reassessing meaning to ascertain ‘what is really going on’ in the data. 30 Theoretical saturation ensues when new data analysis does not provide additional material to existing theoretical categories, and the categories are sufficiently explained. 6

Advanced coding

Birks and Mills 6 described advanced coding as the ‘techniques used to facilitate integration of the final grounded theory’ (p. 177). These authors promote storyline technique (described in the following section) and theoretical coding as strategies for advancing analysis and theoretical integration. Advanced coding is essential to produce a theory that is grounded in the data and has explanatory power. 6 During the advanced coding phase, concepts that reach the stage of categories will be abstract, representing stories of many, reduced into highly conceptual terms. The findings are presented as a set of interrelated concepts as opposed to presenting themes. 28 Explanatory statements detail the relationships between categories and the central core category. 28

Storyline is a tool that can be used for theoretical integration. Birks and Mills 6 define storyline as ‘a strategy for facilitating integration, construction, formulation, and presentation of research findings through the production of a coherent grounded theory’ (p. 180). Storyline technique is first proposed with limited attention in Basics of Qualitative Research by Strauss and Corbin 12 and further developed by Birks et al. 38 as a tool for theoretical integration. The storyline is the conceptualisation of the core category. 6 This procedure builds a story that connects the categories and produces a discursive set of theoretical propositions. 24 Birks and Mills 6 contend that storyline can be ‘used to produce a comprehensive rendering of your grounded theory’ (p. 118). Birks et al. 38 had earlier concluded, ‘storyline enhances the development, presentation and comprehension of the outcomes of grounded theory research’ (p. 405). Once the storyline is developed, the GT is finalised using theoretical codes that ‘provide a framework for enhancing the explanatory power of the storyline and its potential as theory’. 6 Thus, storyline is the explication of the theory.

Theoretical coding occurs as the final culminating stage towards achieving a GT. 39 , 40 The purpose of theoretical coding is to integrate the substantive theory. 41 Saldaña 40 states, ‘theoretical coding integrates and synthesises the categories derived from coding and analysis to now create a theory’ (p. 224). Initial coding fractures the data while theoretical codes ‘weave the fractured story back together again into an organized whole theory’. 18 Advanced coding that integrates extant theory adds further explanatory power to the findings. 6 The examples in Box 2 describe the use of storyline as a technique.

Writing the storyline.

Theoretical sensitivity

As presented in Figure 1 , theoretical sensitivity encompasses the entire research process. Glaser and Strauss 5 initially described the term theoretical sensitivity in The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Theoretical sensitivity is the ability to know when you identify a data segment that is important to your theory. While Strauss and Corbin 12 describe theoretical sensitivity as the insight into what is meaningful and of significance in the data for theory development, Birks and Mills 6 define theoretical sensitivity as ‘the ability to recognise and extract from the data elements that have relevance for the emerging theory’ (p. 181). Conducting GT research requires a balance between keeping an open mind and the ability to identify elements of theoretical significance during data generation and/or collection and data analysis. 6

Several analytic tools and techniques can be used to enhance theoretical sensitivity and increase the grounded theorist’s sensitivity to theoretical constructs in the data. 28 Birks and Mills 6 state, ‘as a grounded theorist becomes immersed in the data, their level of theoretical sensitivity to analytic possibilities will increase’ (p. 12). Developing sensitivity as a grounded theorist and the application of theoretical sensitivity throughout the research process allows the analytical focus to be directed towards theory development and ultimately result in an integrated and abstract GT. 6 The example in Box 3 highlights how analytic tools are employed to increase theoretical sensitivity.

Theoretical sensitivity.

The grounded theory

The meticulous application of essential GT methods refines the analysis resulting in the generation of an integrated, comprehensive GT that explains a process relating to a particular phenomenon. 6 The results of a GT study are communicated as a set of concepts, related to each other in an interrelated whole, and expressed in the production of a substantive theory. 5 , 7 , 16 A substantive theory is a theoretical interpretation or explanation of a studied phenomenon 6 , 17 Thus, the hallmark of grounded theory is the generation of theory ‘abstracted from, or grounded in, data generated and collected by the researcher’. 6 However, to ensure quality in research requires the application of rigour throughout the research process.

Quality and rigour

The quality of a grounded theory can be related to three distinct areas underpinned by (1) the researcher’s expertise, knowledge and research skills; (2) methodological congruence with the research question; and (3) procedural precision in the use of methods. 6 Methodological congruence is substantiated when the philosophical position of the researcher is congruent with the research question and the methodological approach selected. 6 Data collection or generation and analytical conceptualisation need to be rigorous throughout the research process to secure excellence in the final grounded theory. 44

Procedural precision requires careful attention to maintaining a detailed audit trail, data management strategies and demonstrable procedural logic recorded using memos. 6 Organisation and management of research data, memos and literature can be assisted using software programs such as NVivo. An audit trail of decision-making, changes in the direction of the research and the rationale for decisions made are essential to ensure rigour in the final grounded theory. 6

This article offers a framework to assist novice researchers visualise the iterative processes that underpin a GT study. The fundamental process and methods used to generate an integrated grounded theory have been described. Novice researchers can adapt the framework presented to inform and guide the design of a GT study. This framework provides a useful guide to visualise the interplay between the methods and processes inherent in conducting GT. Research conducted ethically and with meticulous attention to process will ensure quality research outcomes that have relevance at the practice level.

Declaration of conflicting interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding: The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Home » Grounded Theory – Methods, Examples and Guide

Grounded Theory – Methods, Examples and Guide

Table of Contents

Grounded Theory

Definition:

Grounded Theory is a qualitative research methodology that aims to generate theories based on data that are grounded in the empirical reality of the research context. The method involves a systematic process of data collection, coding, categorization, and analysis to identify patterns and relationships in the data.

The ultimate goal is to develop a theory that explains the phenomenon being studied, which is based on the data collected and analyzed rather than on preconceived notions or hypotheses. The resulting theory should be able to explain the phenomenon in a way that is consistent with the data and also accounts for variations and discrepancies in the data. Grounded Theory is widely used in sociology, psychology, management, and other social sciences to study a wide range of phenomena, such as organizational behavior, social interaction, and health care.

History of Grounded Theory

Grounded Theory was first introduced by sociologists Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss in the 1960s as a response to the limitations of traditional positivist approaches to social research. The approach was initially developed to study dying patients and their families in hospitals, but it was soon applied to other areas of sociology and beyond.

Glaser and Strauss published their seminal book “The Discovery of Grounded Theory” in 1967, in which they presented their approach to developing theory from empirical data. They argued that existing social theories often did not account for the complexity and diversity of social phenomena, and that the development of theory should be grounded in empirical data.

Since then, Grounded Theory has become a widely used methodology in the social sciences, and has been applied to a wide range of topics, including healthcare, education, business, and psychology. The approach has also evolved over time, with variations such as constructivist grounded theory and feminist grounded theory being developed to address specific criticisms and limitations of the original approach.

Types of Grounded Theory

There are two main types of Grounded Theory: Classic Grounded Theory and Constructivist Grounded Theory.

Classic Grounded Theory

This approach is based on the work of Glaser and Strauss, and emphasizes the discovery of a theory that is grounded in data. The focus is on generating a theory that explains the phenomenon being studied, without being influenced by preconceived notions or existing theories. The process involves a continuous cycle of data collection, coding, and analysis, with the aim of developing categories and subcategories that are grounded in the data. The categories and subcategories are then compared and synthesized to generate a theory that explains the phenomenon.

Constructivist Grounded Theory

This approach is based on the work of Charmaz, and emphasizes the role of the researcher in the process of theory development. The focus is on understanding how individuals construct meaning and interpret their experiences, rather than on discovering an objective truth. The process involves a reflexive and iterative approach to data collection, coding, and analysis, with the aim of developing categories that are grounded in the data and the researcher’s interpretations of the data. The categories are then compared and synthesized to generate a theory that accounts for the multiple perspectives and interpretations of the phenomenon being studied.

Grounded Theory Conducting Guide

Here are some general guidelines for conducting a Grounded Theory study:

• Choose a research question: Start by selecting a research question that is open-ended and focuses on a specific social phenomenon or problem.
• Select participants and collect data: Identify a diverse group of participants who have experienced the phenomenon being studied. Use a variety of data collection methods such as interviews, observations, and document analysis to collect rich and diverse data.
• Analyze the data: Begin the process of analyzing the data using constant comparison. This involves comparing the data to each other and to existing categories and codes, in order to identify patterns and relationships. Use open coding to identify concepts and categories, and then use axial coding to organize them into a theoretical framework.
• Generate categories and codes: Generate categories and codes that describe the phenomenon being studied. Make sure that they are grounded in the data and that they accurately reflect the experiences of the participants.
• Refine and develop the theory: Use theoretical sampling to identify new data sources that are relevant to the developing theory. Use memoing to reflect on insights and ideas that emerge during the analysis process. Continue to refine and develop the theory until it provides a comprehensive explanation of the phenomenon.
• Validate the theory: Finally, seek to validate the theory by testing it against new data and seeking feedback from peers and other researchers. This process helps to refine and improve the theory, and to ensure that it is grounded in the data.
• Write up and disseminate the findings: Once the theory is fully developed and validated, write up the findings and disseminate them through academic publications and presentations. Make sure to acknowledge the contributions of the participants and to provide a detailed account of the research methods used.

Data Collection Methods

Grounded Theory Data Collection Methods are as follows:

• Interviews : One of the most common data collection methods in Grounded Theory is the use of in-depth interviews. Interviews allow researchers to gather rich and detailed data about the experiences, perspectives, and attitudes of participants. Interviews can be conducted one-on-one or in a group setting.
• Observation : Observation is another data collection method used in Grounded Theory. Researchers may observe participants in their natural settings, such as in a workplace or community setting. This method can provide insights into the social interactions and behaviors of participants.
• Document analysis: Grounded Theory researchers also use document analysis as a data collection method. This involves analyzing existing documents such as reports, policies, or historical records that are relevant to the phenomenon being studied.
• Focus groups : Focus groups involve bringing together a group of participants to discuss a specific topic or issue. This method can provide insights into group dynamics and social interactions.
• Fieldwork : Fieldwork involves immersing oneself in the research setting and participating in the activities of the participants. This method can provide an in-depth understanding of the culture and social dynamics of the research setting.
• Multimedia data: Grounded Theory researchers may also use multimedia data such as photographs, videos, or audio recordings to capture the experiences and perspectives of participants.

Data Analysis Methods

Grounded Theory Data Analysis Methods are as follows:

• Open coding: Open coding is the process of identifying concepts and categories in the data. Researchers use open coding to assign codes to different pieces of data, and to identify similarities and differences between them.
• Axial coding: Axial coding is the process of organizing the codes into broader categories and subcategories. Researchers use axial coding to develop a theoretical framework that explains the phenomenon being studied.
• Constant comparison: Grounded Theory involves a process of constant comparison, in which data is compared to each other and to existing categories and codes in order to identify patterns and relationships.
• Theoretical sampling: Theoretical sampling involves selecting new data sources based on the emerging theory. Researchers use theoretical sampling to collect data that will help refine and validate the theory.
• Memoing : Memoing involves writing down reflections, insights, and ideas as the analysis progresses. This helps researchers to organize their thoughts and develop a deeper understanding of the data.
• Peer debriefing: Peer debriefing involves seeking feedback from peers and other researchers on the developing theory. This process helps to validate the theory and ensure that it is grounded in the data.
• Member checking: Member checking involves sharing the emerging theory with the participants in the study and seeking their feedback. This process helps to ensure that the theory accurately reflects the experiences and perspectives of the participants.
• Triangulation: Triangulation involves using multiple sources of data to validate the emerging theory. Researchers may use different data collection methods, different data sources, or different analysts to ensure that the theory is grounded in the data.

Applications of Grounded Theory

Here are some of the key applications of Grounded Theory:

• Social sciences : Grounded Theory is widely used in social science research, particularly in fields such as sociology, psychology, and anthropology. It can be used to explore a wide range of social phenomena, such as social interactions, power dynamics, and cultural practices.
• Healthcare : Grounded Theory can be used in healthcare research to explore patient experiences, healthcare practices, and healthcare systems. It can provide insights into the factors that influence healthcare outcomes, and can inform the development of interventions and policies.
• Education : Grounded Theory can be used in education research to explore teaching and learning processes, student experiences, and educational policies. It can provide insights into the factors that influence educational outcomes, and can inform the development of educational interventions and policies.
• Business : Grounded Theory can be used in business research to explore organizational processes, management practices, and consumer behavior. It can provide insights into the factors that influence business outcomes, and can inform the development of business strategies and policies.
• Technology : Grounded Theory can be used in technology research to explore user experiences, technology adoption, and technology design. It can provide insights into the factors that influence technology outcomes, and can inform the development of technology interventions and policies.

Examples of Grounded Theory

Examples of Grounded Theory in different case studies are as follows:

• Glaser and Strauss (1965): This study, which is considered one of the foundational works of Grounded Theory, explored the experiences of dying patients in a hospital. The researchers used Grounded Theory to develop a theoretical framework that explained the social processes of dying, and that was grounded in the data.
• Charmaz (1983): This study explored the experiences of chronic illness among young adults. The researcher used Grounded Theory to develop a theoretical framework that explained how individuals with chronic illness managed their illness, and how their illness impacted their sense of self.
• Strauss and Corbin (1990): This study explored the experiences of individuals with chronic pain. The researchers used Grounded Theory to develop a theoretical framework that explained the different strategies that individuals used to manage their pain, and that was grounded in the data.
• Glaser and Strauss (1967): This study explored the experiences of individuals who were undergoing a process of becoming disabled. The researchers used Grounded Theory to develop a theoretical framework that explained the social processes of becoming disabled, and that was grounded in the data.
• Clarke (2005): This study explored the experiences of patients with cancer who were receiving chemotherapy. The researcher used Grounded Theory to develop a theoretical framework that explained the factors that influenced patient adherence to chemotherapy, and that was grounded in the data.

Grounded Theory Research Example

A Grounded Theory Research Example Would be:

Research question : What is the experience of first-generation college students in navigating the college admission process?

Data collection : The researcher conducted interviews with first-generation college students who had recently gone through the college admission process. The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim.

Data analysis: The researcher used a constant comparative method to analyze the data. This involved coding the data, comparing codes, and constantly revising the codes to identify common themes and patterns. The researcher also used memoing, which involved writing notes and reflections on the data and analysis.

Findings : Through the analysis of the data, the researcher identified several themes related to the experience of first-generation college students in navigating the college admission process, such as feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of the process, lacking knowledge about the process, and facing financial barriers.

Theory development: Based on the findings, the researcher developed a theory about the experience of first-generation college students in navigating the college admission process. The theory suggested that first-generation college students faced unique challenges in the college admission process due to their lack of knowledge and resources, and that these challenges could be addressed through targeted support programs and resources.

In summary, grounded theory research involves collecting data, analyzing it through constant comparison and memoing, and developing a theory grounded in the data. The resulting theory can help to explain the phenomenon being studied and guide future research and interventions.

Purpose of Grounded Theory

The purpose of Grounded Theory is to develop a theoretical framework that explains a social phenomenon, process, or interaction. This theoretical framework is developed through a rigorous process of data collection, coding, and analysis, and is grounded in the data.

Grounded Theory aims to uncover the social processes and patterns that underlie social phenomena, and to develop a theoretical framework that explains these processes and patterns. It is a flexible method that can be used to explore a wide range of research questions and settings, and is particularly well-suited to exploring complex social phenomena that have not been well-studied.

The ultimate goal of Grounded Theory is to generate a theoretical framework that is grounded in the data, and that can be used to explain and predict social phenomena. This theoretical framework can then be used to inform policy and practice, and to guide future research in the field.

When to use Grounded Theory

Following are some situations in which Grounded Theory may be particularly useful:

• Exploring new areas of research: Grounded Theory is particularly useful when exploring new areas of research that have not been well-studied. By collecting and analyzing data, researchers can develop a theoretical framework that explains the social processes and patterns underlying the phenomenon of interest.
• Studying complex social phenomena: Grounded Theory is well-suited to exploring complex social phenomena that involve multiple social processes and interactions. By using an iterative process of data collection and analysis, researchers can develop a theoretical framework that explains the complexity of the social phenomenon.
• Generating hypotheses: Grounded Theory can be used to generate hypotheses about social processes and interactions that can be tested in future research. By developing a theoretical framework that explains a social phenomenon, researchers can identify areas for further research and hypothesis testing.
• Informing policy and practice : Grounded Theory can provide insights into the factors that influence social phenomena, and can inform policy and practice in a variety of fields. By developing a theoretical framework that explains a social phenomenon, researchers can identify areas for intervention and policy development.

Characteristics of Grounded Theory

Grounded Theory is a qualitative research method that is characterized by several key features, including:

• Emergence : Grounded Theory emphasizes the emergence of theoretical categories and concepts from the data, rather than preconceived theoretical ideas. This means that the researcher does not start with a preconceived theory or hypothesis, but instead allows the theory to emerge from the data.
• Iteration : Grounded Theory is an iterative process that involves constant comparison of data and analysis, with each round of data collection and analysis refining the theoretical framework.
• Inductive : Grounded Theory is an inductive method of analysis, which means that it derives meaning from the data. The researcher starts with the raw data and systematically codes and categorizes it to identify patterns and themes, and to develop a theoretical framework that explains these patterns.
• Reflexive : Grounded Theory requires the researcher to be reflexive and self-aware throughout the research process. The researcher’s personal biases and assumptions must be acknowledged and addressed in the analysis process.
• Holistic : Grounded Theory takes a holistic approach to data analysis, looking at the entire data set rather than focusing on individual data points. This allows the researcher to identify patterns and themes that may not be apparent when looking at individual data points.
• Contextual : Grounded Theory emphasizes the importance of understanding the context in which social phenomena occur. This means that the researcher must consider the social, cultural, and historical factors that may influence the phenomenon of interest.

Advantages of Grounded Theory

Advantages of Grounded Theory are as follows:

• Flexibility : Grounded Theory is a flexible method that can be used to explore a wide range of research questions and settings. It is particularly well-suited to exploring complex social phenomena that have not been well-studied.
• Validity : Grounded Theory aims to develop a theoretical framework that is grounded in the data, which enhances the validity and reliability of the research findings. The iterative process of data collection and analysis also helps to ensure that the research findings are reliable and robust.
• Originality : Grounded Theory can generate new and original insights into social phenomena, as it is not constrained by preconceived theoretical ideas or hypotheses. This allows researchers to explore new areas of research and generate new theoretical frameworks.
• Real-world relevance: Grounded Theory can inform policy and practice, as it provides insights into the factors that influence social phenomena. The theoretical frameworks developed through Grounded Theory can be used to inform policy development and intervention strategies.
• Ethical : Grounded Theory is an ethical research method, as it allows participants to have a voice in the research process. Participants’ perspectives are central to the data collection and analysis process, which ensures that their views are taken into account.
• Replication : Grounded Theory is a replicable method of research, as the theoretical frameworks developed through Grounded Theory can be tested and validated in future research.

Limitations of Grounded Theory

Limitations of Grounded Theory are as follows:

• Time-consuming: Grounded Theory can be a time-consuming method, as the iterative process of data collection and analysis requires significant time and effort. This can make it difficult to conduct research in a timely and cost-effective manner.
• Subjectivity : Grounded Theory is a subjective method, as the researcher’s personal biases and assumptions can influence the data analysis process. This can lead to potential issues with reliability and validity of the research findings.
• Generalizability : Grounded Theory is a context-specific method, which means that the theoretical frameworks developed through Grounded Theory may not be generalizable to other contexts or populations. This can limit the applicability of the research findings.
• Lack of structure : Grounded Theory is an exploratory method, which means that it lacks the structure of other research methods, such as surveys or experiments. This can make it difficult to compare findings across different studies.
• Data overload: Grounded Theory can generate a large amount of data, which can be overwhelming for researchers. This can make it difficult to manage and analyze the data effectively.
• Difficulty in publication: Grounded Theory can be challenging to publish in some academic journals, as some reviewers and editors may view it as less rigorous than other research methods.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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7 The Grounded Theory Method

Antony Bryant, Faculty of Arts, Environment, and Technology, Leeds Metropolitan University

• Published: 01 July 2014
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The term “grounded theory” was introduced to the research lexicon by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss in the 1960s, particularly with the publication of The Discovery of Grounded Theory in 1967. The term itself is somewhat misleading since it actually refers to a method that facilitates the development of new theoretical insights—grounded theories. In this essay, the method is outlined, together with some background to its appearance and subsequent developments. Later sections describe the main features, procedures, outputs, and evaluation criteria.

The term “grounded theory” first came to prominence with the publication of The Discovery of Grounded Theory (hereafter Discovery ) by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss in 1967 . Since that time, the term itself has come to encompass a family of related approaches to research that reaches across many disciplines, including the social sciences, psychology, medicine, and many others. Strictly speaking, the term “grounded theory” refers to the outcome of a research process that has used the grounded theory method, but it is quite common for researchers and others to refer to the method simply as “grounded theory,” with the context clarifying the meaning. For instance, when Kathy Charmaz and I were compiling and editing a Handbook on the topic ( Bryant & Charmaz, 2007 a /2010 ), I suggested that the title should be The Sage Handbook of the Grounded Theory Method , a suggestion that was immediately and justifiably rejected by our editor on the grounds that, as far as publishers, librarians, and researchers were concerned, The Sage Handbook of Grounded Theory was far more recognizable and perfectly self-explanatory. For the purposes of what follows, however, the term “grounded theory method”—hereafter GTM—will be used to refer to the method, with the term “grounded theory” referring to the outcome.

Prior to the appearance of Discovery, Glaser and Strauss had published several papers and also a book-length study using the GTM, entitled Awareness of Dying ( Glaser & Strauss, 1965 ; hereafter Awareness ). This early work developed from deeply personal experiences for both of them, Glaser and Strauss having each recently suffered the loss of a parent. It is crucial to understand that these deeply personal experiences of key lifecycle events were an important facet of the development of the method. Moreover, similar issues continue to form a key feature of a good deal of research using GTM, with the individual researcher or research team being motivated in their work by personal experiences or specific interests in the area. This is evidenced in many papers and accounts centered on GTM-oriented research, and several of the contributors to chapters in the handbook stress this aspect (e.g., Covan [2007] , Star [2007] , and Stern [2007] ).

Glaser and Strauss were joined in their early research by Jeanne Quint (later Jeanne Quint Benoliel), a nursing specialist who transformed the practice of care for the terminally and chronically ill in the course of her professional career, eventually being admitted to the Nursing Academy of Fame ( Quint Benoliel, 1967 , 1982 , 1996 ). Some of the earliest papers on GTM were co-authored not only by Glaser and Strauss, but also included Quint ( Strauss et al., 1964 ). Indeed, the acknowledgments at the beginning of Discovery include reference to a Public Health Service Research Grant, the funding for which provided the basis for the work leading to publication not only of Awareness and Discovery —and the later book Time for Dying ( Glaser & Strauss 1968 )—but also of Quint’s own book The Nurse and the Dying Patient (1967) . Moreover, Quint’s interest in the outcomes of the work would almost certainly have been centered on the ways in which the research on dying—“awareness” and “time”—afforded a basis for more effective practice, something that has always been a central feature and concern of those developing GTM.

Apart from their own personal experiences of bereavement, the personal trajectories of both Glaser and Strauss are critical in understanding their contributions, joint efforts, and later divergent trajectories with regard to GTM. Anselm Strauss had studied at the University of Chicago as a postgraduate and thereafter held posts at various colleges and universities, until he returned to Chicago in the 1950s. At this stage, he worked with and was influenced by Howard Becker (1963) and Erving Goffman (1959) , continuing the ideas of the earlier Chicago luminaries such as Herbert Blumer (1969) , and George Herbert Mead (1934 , 1938 ). Blumer is credited with coining the term symbolic interactionism , in the 1930s, although its origins are usually linked to the work of Mead. This basis provided Strauss with a background in social sciences that stressed the importance of naturalistic forms of inquiry, and his writings include standard and influential works on social psychology, many of which went through several revisions and reprints. In 1960, Strauss moved to the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). There, he was given the responsibility of establishing the teaching of research methods in the new doctoral program in nursing, itself something of a key innovation. By 1968, he had developed his own doctoral program in sociology, with a specific focus on health, illness, and care, and with a clear predilection for qualitative research. As explained later, his early background was critical in the initial articulation of GTM and its later developments, but not always in the ways that might have been expected.

Barney Glaser studied at Columbia University, New York, where the key influences and luminaries were Paul Lazarsfeld and Robert K. Merton; Merton being ostensibly the supervisor for Glaser’s PhD. The influence of Lazarsfeld was significant, and, to some extent, Glaser might be considered as one of the key adherents and developers of Lazarsfeld’s methodological ideas. Glaser himself makes this clear in his book on Doing Quantitative GT (2008), in which he clarifies the ways in which Lazarsfeld’s ideas influenced and presaged many key aspects of GTM itself.

In a more recent account of his time at Columbia ( Holton, 2011 ), however, Glaser places far more emphasis on the direct influence of Hans Zetterberg in his intellectual and methodological trajectory. The overall impact of his time at Columbia was to imbue Glaser with an agenda that included confidence in pursuing his own research ideas, a suspicion of grand conceptualizations and the grand conceptualizers, and the importance of publishing one’s work—if necessary, self-publishing. In the development of GTM, the influence of Lazarsfeld was particularly important, as will be explained.

In the early 1960s, Glaser moved from New York to California, and, by the mid-1960s, he and Strauss had started to collaborate, producing Awareness in 1965, as well as various earlier papers that can be seen as precursors of GTM. Awareness included a brief appendix entitled “Methods of Collection and Analysis of Data.” This is an important early statement of GTM. It notes that both Strauss and Glaser had experienced bereavements in the years prior to their research. Strauss’s experience in the death of his mother had led him to understand the importance of people’s expectations of the “certainty and timing of dying” (1965, p. 287). He had set up a preliminary study and was later joined in this by Barney Glaser, whose father had recently died. The appendix then offers a succinct summary of the approach that had been used to produce the foregoing chapters, with mention being made of the importance of developing the confidence to plunge into the fieldwork from the outset, generating hypotheses in subsequent stages as the research progresses, and the “blurring and intertwining of coding, data collection and data analysis” (p. 288). Anyone looking for a starting point in reading about GTM would do well to start with this appendix.

The doctoral program at UCSF, founded in 1968, was very much a proving ground for GTM. Those among the first groups undertaking this program were presented with the new research approach, and many of them subsequently became key propagators and developers of the method. Given the settings and context of Glaser and Strauss’s early research, and also that the focus of UCSF was on developing professionals in the areas of medicine, nursing, and what might be termed health support, it was not surprising that much of the work emanating from these GTM pioneers focused on hospital- and health-oriented issues.

Marking the fortieth anniversary of the doctoral program in 2008, a member of its first intake made the following comment:

“I like to refer to this program as The Mouse That Roared,” says Virginia Olesen, professor emerita in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the UCSF School of Nursing. “This has always been a tiny program—never more than six or seven faculty. But, my gosh, the contributions....” (quoted in Schwartz, 2009 )

Strauss can be seen as a pioneer of what would now be termed the sociology of medicine and healthcare. Moreover, this initial anchoring in the healthcare context, combined with the methodological innovations, resulted in a rich and varied series of outputs that have had a significant and continuing influence on social research methods, nursing practices, and palliative care. Schwartz (2009) does not exaggerate in summarizing the contributions as including, “legitimizing the concept of nursing research, establishing today’s most prominent qualitative research methodology and, supplying much of the ammunition informing the most significant public discussions about health and health care over the past half century, from women’s health and health disparities to aging and the impact of science and technology.”

With regard to GTM itself, many of the students from these early years of the program went on to develop and enhance the method, including Kathy Charmaz, Juliet Corbin, and Adele Clarke.

Background and Early Development

Although Discovery is rightly regarded as the founding text of GTM, its role was very much one of a manifesto, rather than an instructional overview or manual. In the opening pages of the book, Glaser and Strauss argue that the book “is directed toward improving social scientists” capacities for generating theories’ (1967, p. vii). They recognize that not everyone can develop this capacity, but this does not mean that it should be seen as something restricted to a few geniuses. Generating “useful theories” requires “a different perspective on the canons derived from vigorous quantitative verification on such issues as sampling, coding, reliability, validity, indicators, frequency distributions, conceptual formulation, construction of hypotheses, and presentation of evidence. We need to develop canons more suited to the discovery of theory ” (p. viii; emphasis added).

Glaser and Strauss contended that research in the social sciences in the United States in the 1960s was largely centered on the grand theorists and their grand theories. Thus, doctoral students in particular were all too often expected to develop proposals that emanated from one or other well-founded, “grand” theoretical position, deriving hypotheses and then concomitant procedures and tests for validating these latter deductions. They saw this as a highly unequal relationship between “theoretical capitalists” and “proletarian testers.” Moreover, this emphasis on verification prevented new and useful theories from being developed. Whether this was quite as widespread as Glaser and Strauss claim is not clear; indeed, Strauss himself had come from a contending orientation—the Chicago School—that had produced significant work from a fairly wide range of different researchers. But whatever the truth of the matter, GTM developed as a reaction against a view of research—quantitative and hypothesis-oriented—which was prevalent among the social science research community in the United States at the time. Conversely, it is important to understand that the method was, from the first, marked far more by its innovative claims and contribution to research practice than it was by its critical position with regard to standard approaches.

Kathy Charmaz (2006) has pointed to the distinctive features of GTM that challenged many of the core assumptions prevalent among US social science researchers in the 1960s:

the “arbitrary divisions between theory and research”; viewing qualitative studies as preparatory for more rigorous quantitative work; viewing qualitative research as illegitimate and devoid of rigour; viewing qualitative studies as impressionistic and unsystematic; the separation of data collection from its analysis; seeing the only possible outcome of qualitative research as “descriptive case studies rather than theory development.”

It is worth dwelling on these since further consideration will be of particular benefit in preparing a GTM-oriented research proposal that often requires engagement with the still conventional hypothesis-oriented “quantitative canon.”

Research Versus Theory

What Charmaz terms the “arbitrary division between theory and research” emanates from Glaser and Strauss’s argument that the social sciences in the 1960s in the United States had become “frozen” theoretically. The work of the European founding fathers of social science—Marx, Weber, Durkheim—had been supplemented by the work of homegrown theorists such as Parsons and Merton. This body of work had then come to be seen as a rich basis for further research, particularly for doctoral students and other, relatively inexperienced researchers, who would enhance existing work through the “canon of verification” to which Glaser and Strauss alluded in the opening section of Discovery .

Whatever the merits might have been for this orthodoxy, Glaser and Strauss individually had taken issue with it, both conceptually and as part of their own intellectual trajectories. Strauss had developed ideas in the field of social psychology and was heavily and directly influenced by the work of relatively unconventional social scientists associated with the various generations of the Chicago School, particularly those linked to symbolic interactionism. Glaser, conversely, had direct experience of the ways in which doctoral research could become a process of “proletarian testing” under the guidance of “theoretical capitalists”: Merton was his doctoral supervisor. In the recent work in which Holton (2011) reports on a series of interviews with Glaser, he makes it clear that although he learned a great deal from Merton and Lazarsfeld, he also consciously trod his own path, with encouragement from Zetterberg, who was only his senior by a few years.

In their early statements on GTM, such as Awareness and Discovery , Glaser and Strauss not only wanted to demonstrate the power of their method, but also to encourage others to follow their example. In particular, they wanted to encourage early-career researchers to branch out on their own, confident that they could and should aim to contribute new theoretical insights. The grounded theory method, with its emphasis on research founded on directly gathered data, rather than initial hypotheses, offered a route whereby researchers could aim to produce novel theoretical insights in the form of substantive theories—that is, conceptual statements or models that provided deep and practical insights into specific contexts, but that required further work if they were to provide the basis for more general purposes (see later discussion).

The overall impact of this means that there are firm justifications for the preparation of research proposals that can indeed eschew hypothesis testing as the starting point of research and instead specify objectives based on developing new conceptual models, framework, or theories. These outcomes can be evaluated using Glaser and Strauss’ criteria of fit, grab, work , and modifiability . Thus, the view that research is something based on existing theories can be challenged, offering the alternative proposition whereby theories and hypotheses can be the results of a research project. This is not to suggest that the latter viewpoint eclipses the former, but rather that the sequence of “theory then hypotheses then research” can be supplemented or replaced by the sequence “research then theory and hypotheses.”

The Status of Qualitative Research

For many researchers and, perhaps more importantly, for many disciplinary and research domain gatekeepers, valid research ought to be quantitative. The epigram of Lord Kelvin (Sir William Thompson) is often (mis)quoted in this regard: “If you cannot measure it, you cannot (control) improve it.” A more extended version runs as follows

In physical science the first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the state of Science , whatever the matter may be. [PLA, vol. 1, “Electrical Units of Measurement,” 1883-05- 03] available at http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/quotes/ . Accessed July 26, 2012

Kelvin also argued, however, that “radio has no future,” “X-rays will prove to be a hoax,” warned the Niagara Falls Power Company that I “trust you will avoid the gigantic mistake of alternating current”; and stated in his address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1900, that “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now, All that remains is more and more precise measurement.” (This last statement is somewhat disputed, since the original source cannot be confirmed.) So much for Lord Kelvin’s prognostications!

All too often, researchers have made the mistake of measuring what can be measured, rather than attending to investigating the key issues—whether or not they are amenable to simple, or not-so-simple, quantification. Glaser and Strauss could have counted the number of patients who died in the various hospital wards they investigated; they could also have looked at the number of days or hours that elapsed between admission to hospital and eventual demise. These might have produced some meaningful outcomes, but the concepts of “awareness” and “time” would not have emanated from such studies.

Kelvin’s longer quote expresses the view that nonquantitative studies are “at best” a preliminary to true knowledge (which must always be quantitative), but the results of the burgeoning of qualitative research that has developed at least since the 1960s indicate something very different. The outcomes of qualitative research can indeed be poor, ill-defined, lacking in rigor, and of little practical use; but so too can the outcomes of quantitative research. Moreover, thanks to the efforts of Glaser and Strauss—as well as many others who have contributed to innovation in research practice in many disciplines—qualitative research can be carried out in accord with clear and coherent criteria, laying a foundation for rigorous claims to knowledge and conceptual and theoretical innovation.

As will be seen in the sections that follow, there is an issue with regard to the distinction between conceptual innovation and impressionistic (re)description, but this is no more problematic for qualitative research than issues around statistical significance and meaningless or ambiguous measurement are for quantitative research. The key point is that Glaser and Strauss’ work in the 1960s and beyond needs to be recognized as forming a significant contribution to the knowledge claims of qualitative research methods and outcomes—many of which are now far more widely accepted if not widely taken for granted.

Data Collection and Analysis

One of Glaser’s teachers at Columbia was Paul Lazarsfeld, now considered to be one of the key influences in the development of investigative and experimental methods in sociology. Many of the existing taken-for-granted methods in applied social research were, in fact, developed by Lazarsfeld and his colleagues, and one of his key concerns was to combine quantitative and qualitative approaches. Before immigrating to the United States, Lazarsfeld lived and worked in Vienna. During this period, he was one of the key researchers and authors of the Marienthal study ( Lazarsfeld et al., 1933/1971 ), which has since become a classic in the sociological canon. The study was an investigation of one Austrian village—Marienthal—and was pioneering in its in-depth analysis, combining both quantitative and qualitative approaches. In his later work, Lazarsfeld developed the methodological insights gained from this and other studies (1972), publishing several key texts on methods (most notably Lazarsfeld and Rosenberg [1955] —and many editions thereafter); and, in these, he warned researchers about the dangers of simple coding and classification techniques, often stressing the need for researchers to analyze their data as it was in the process of being collected and categorized.

Much of this resonates with Glaser and Strauss’ characterization of GTM, albeit in a far less amenable and articulated form. Although there are now several variants of the method, one of the key aspects of any truly grounded method study is the way in which the processes of gathering, sorting, and analyzing the data continue simultaneously and iteratively. At later stages of the research, data will be sorted into or compared against categories or codes, but these will themselves be products of the earlier stages of the research, rather than delineations and distinctions preconceived prior to the start of the study itself.

This intertwining might be thought of as a spiral, with foundations in the early data, gathered in a wide and encompassing manner, then moving upward and inward toward a more focused and directed view of some key aspect or aspects of the research domain. As Glaser and Strauss demonstrated in their early studies, and as many have since demonstrated, this approach can result in detailed models or theories that combine conceptual cogency with relevance and utility.

The Results and Value of Qualitative Research

In some cases, qualitative research can produce outcomes that can be criticized as failing to offer more than impressionistic (re)description—that is, simply taking various accounts or observations of some domain of interest and weaving them into a narrative with little or no conceptual depth or practical relevance. As stated earlier, however, an equivalent failing also haunts the world of quantitative methods: results that are based on incorrect or inaccurate use of statistical methods and meaningless or ambiguous hypotheses (see Goldacre’s vivid and readable account of “Bad Science,” 2009 ; also his blog at http://www.badscience.net/ ). Research is a process fraught with a variety of pitfalls and problems requiring a combination of skill, experience, serendipity, and, sometimes, plain dumb luck. This applies equally to all forms of research, whether predominantly quantitative, qualitative, or a combination of several methods and approaches.

Glaser and Strauss, from the very beginning of their work together, stressed that the outcomes of a grounded theory study—that is, the grounded theory itself—had to adhere to some specific criteria, but ones that were distinct from those often held up as necessary for hypothesis-based, deductive research. They termed these grab, fit, work , and modifiability . At first sight, these might appear to be somewhat vague, but the terms are explained in some detail in the latter chapters of Awareness and sections of Discovery .

As I have explained elsewhere ( Bryant, 2009 ), the use of these terms can best be understood in the light of the work and ideas of the pragmatists, specifically John Dewey (1999) and William James (1904) . Dewey, in particular, promoted the idea of theories as tools—to be judged by their usefulness, rather than their truthfulness. This link between pragmatism and GTM was rarely mentioned by Glaser and Strauss in their joint publications in the 1960s, and Glaser never makes any reference to it in his later, solo writings. Strauss, for his part, does refer to pragmatism as “a red thread running through my work” (1993, p. 22) in his last book, Continual Permutations of Action , which is not regarded as part of his output on GTM and qualitative methods. Strauss was heavily influenced by pragmatism via his contact with G. H. Mead and others associated with the early Chicago School. In Awareness, chapter 14 is entitled “The Practical Use of Awareness Theory” (p. 259), and the footnote on that page does make specific reference to Dewey’s concept of a theory as something that is instrumental. But this is perhaps the only indication in Glaser and Strauss’s work—in concert or individually—of any relationship between GTM and pragmatism. Whatever the actual and acknowledged links between pragmatism and GTM might be, situating these four criteria against pragmatist ideas does shed light on each of the terms, enhancing the ways in which they can be understood as guidelines for evaluating the outcomes of research as follows:

Grab : This is a characteristic of a substantive grounded theory. It relates to Dewey’s idea of a theory being judged in terms of its usefulness, rather than on any abstract principle of veracity. If a grounded theory has grab, this might be demonstrated in the way in which the actors from the research setting respond when it is explained to them—they will understand and engage with it, using it in their activities and practices. Jeanne Quint’s development of innovative nursing practices and the ways in which these were taken up by colleagues and fellow professionals are prime examples of this feature.

Fit : This term refers to the need for theoretical insights to adhere to the substantive context, rather than to the predilections or biases (conscious or unwitting) of the researcher(s). Glaser offers further thoughts on this issue in Theoretical Sensitivity (1978) , stressing that the categories resulting from a GTM study should fit the data. How this is accomplished, and the cogency with which it is demonstrated and argued, will depend on the researcher(s) and the relevant published outputs. It should be thought of as an overarching aim to be striven toward in any GTM-oriented research.

Work : This again builds on the idea of a theory as a tool. Tools are useful within specific contexts or for specific tasks. There are no general-purpose tools suited to all and every situation and job. The anticipated outcome of a GTM-oriented research project ought to be a substantive grounded theory—that is, one that is of use in the context from which it has been drawn and within which it has been grounded. Thus, any such theory ought to be able to offer explanations and insights that perhaps previously were unrecognized or implicit and also provide a basis for consideration of future actions and directions. If such a substantive theory is then enhanced and developed to a wider class of contexts, it can claim formal status. One of the earliest examples of this was Strauss’s work on negotiated orders ( Strauss, 1978 ), which extended some of the aspects of the research that led to Glaser and Strauss’s early writings.

Modifiability : One of Glaser and Strauss’s criticisms of hypothesis-based research was that, far too often, by the time a research project had been completed—passing from derivation and proposal, through investigation, to eventual proof or disproof—things had moved on and, as a consequence, the finding and conclusions proved to be of little or no relevance. Furthermore, the process of conceptual discovery is not to be thought of as a once-and-for-all activity, but rather as a continuing and continuous dialogue. Thus, grounded theories have to be understood as modifiable, rather than as fixed, definitive statements for all time.

Epistemological and Ontological Issues

Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. – ( John Maynard Keynes, 1964 , p. 383)

The 1960s witnessed various other challenges to academic orthodoxy, although these seem not to have been of any real concern to Glaser or Strauss, since neither one makes extended reference to them in their writings on GTM and associated methodological matters. One of the key challenges emanated from a variety of critiques of what was perceived as the dominant model of social science research and theorizing in the United States at the time, most notably the structural-functionalist approach exemplified in the work of Talcott Parsons (1949 , 1951 ). Apart from being seen as inherently conservative in its orientation, this stance was also criticized for placing far more emphasis on social structures and stability at the expense of social actors and agency. Part of the reaction to this view came from the work of the Chicago School of sociology, which stressed the importance of social actors’ views in creating and sustaining social contexts and institutions, including, in the 1950s and early 1960s, the work of Strauss himself, as well as others such as Erving Goffman and Howard Becker ( Becker, 1963 ; Becker, Geer, Hughes, & Strauss, 1961 ; Goffman, 1959 ).

With hindsight one can see the continuity between this facet of the Chicago School and the development of GTM. A significant aspect of the grounded nature of GTM arises from its focus on direct participation in the research context by the researcher(s), often including observation of and interviews with those involved. As will be explained later, the derivation of initial codes that encapsulate key features of the research context can themselves originate with the outcomes of these early interviews, based on the actual words and phrases used by the interviewees.

As has already been argued, GTM was presented by Glaser and Strauss as a challenge to the orthodoxy of research practice at the time. Moreover, it appears reasonable to argue that another aspect of their challenge drew on the ideas Strauss in particular had encountered, and contributed to, during his time in Chicago. Similarly Glaser had himself taken on, and significantly enhanced, some of the methodological insights on offer from familiarity with Lazarsfeld and colleagues at Columbia. So there is a case to be made for the influence of these lineages in the development of GTM, although this is in no way to detract from the innovative nature of GTM itself.

What is surprising, however, is the lack of any engagement with a further aspect of the range of challenges to academic orthodoxy at the time, as embodied in the work of Thomas Kuhn. Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) created a major stir in the 1960s and is now regarded by many as one of the key works of the twentieth century. Apart from anything else, he challenged widely accepted views of science, scientific research, and the ways in which our knowledge of the world has developed and might be thought of as progressing in the future. His use of the term “paradigm” undermined the view that one could observe the world from a completely neutral position. At around the same time, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman encapsulated a similar set of arguments in their book The Social Construction of Reality (1966) , and both books contributed to what can be termed a constructivist or interpretivist model of knowledge—that is, that our understanding of reality is apprehended and sustained through social processes and interactions.

This position was articulated specifically to challenge various forms of positivism that, broadly understood, assumes the possibility of some neutral form of observation as a basis for discovery, testing of theories, hypotheses, and other claims to knowledge. The 1960s was marked by a variety of attacks on various forms of “conventional wisdom,” and Glaser and Strauss’s work can be seen as one component of this. What is surprising, however, is that neither Glaser nor Strauss makes any extended reference to any of these other, contemporary developments. Kuhn’s argument incorporated what was seen by many as a highly unflattering characterization of science in nonrevolutionary periods—which he termed “normal science”—as “puzzle solving,” rather than what might be termed discovery of new knowledge.

This resonates to a large extent with Glaser and Strauss’s criticism of social science research as “proletarian testing” of the grand conceptions of the “theoretical capitalists.” Conversely, one of the main thrusts of Kuhn’s argument was that scientific revolutions amounted to a paradigm shift, which was not simply an enhancement of previous knowledge but a completely different way of seeing the world. For instance, the shift from a geocentric view of the universe to a heliocentric one involves studying common aspects of the natural world but seeing them in totally different ways. Likewise, someone with a grounding in natural sciences from the late seventeenth or early eighteenth centuries would, quite literally, see things very differently from someone with a grounding in natural sciences from the late eighteenth century onward—something illustrated by Kuhn in his description of the work undertaken by Joseph Priestley in the late eighteenth century. Priestley is now accredited with discovering oxygen, but Kuhn argues that Priestley’s own account of his experimental findings indicates that he continued to adhere to accepted wisdom rather than accept what we would now understand as the idea of air and other materials being composed of basic elements such as oxygen. (Priestley argued to his dying days that his observations were of something called “de-phlogisticated air,” whereas Lavoisier, who heard of and repeated Priestley’s experiments, wrote about his observations of the properties of oxygen.)

One of the key consequences of the ideas of Kuhn and others was that there was no such thing as a neutral standpoint from which to observe and explain the world. Taken further, this leads on to the argument that the ways in which we describe the world, using language, are not neutral or transparent; language is not simply a way of describing reality, it is actually a crucial part of how we constitute reality. Taken as a whole, these developments—many of which actually predate the twentieth century in one form or another—culminated in the 1960s in a concerted attack on simple and straightforward ideas about data and observation. But neither Glaser nor Strauss ever took these up in any way. On the contrary, Glaser and Strauss, whether in their collaborative or separate contributions, consistently treat “data” as an uncomplicated concept. Moreover, in using the term “emergence” in a passive and unembodied sense—as in “the theory emerges from the data”—they cannot help but oversimplify the nature of data and the process of “discovery,” also obscuring the active role of researchers in shaping the development of codes, categories, and concepts.

By the late 1980s and early 1990s, GTM had grown in popularity, particularly following the publication of Strauss’s solo work Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists ( Strauss, 1987 ) and his collaborative work with Juliet Corbin, Basics of Qualitative Research ( Strauss & Corbin, 1990 , 1998 )—now in its third edition ( Corbin & Strauss, 2008 ). Many doctoral researchers and others more advanced in their academic and research careers were taking up GTM, presenting proposals and findings that drew on Discovery and Basics in particular. Reviewers and research advisers found themselves presented with proposals that did not emanate from clearly formulated research questions or present hypotheses to be tested but that rather outlined generic areas of concern or specific contexts to be explored prior to articulation of clear objectives or issues. Moreover, research papers reported findings in which categories were derived from the intertwining of simultaneous and iterative processes of data gathering and analysis, with the outcomes often presented as having “emerged from the data.”

This presented evaluators, reviewers, and assessors in general with a number of problems and concerns. Some of these emanated from the innovations in the method itself, others from the ways in which researchers reported their findings and the details of the processes they followed.

Innovations

For those used to assessing research proposals in terms of the hypotheses presented or the clarity of the objectives articulated at the outset, GTM-oriented examples were something of a conundrum. Often, such proposals gave only a very generic and ill-defined account of the nature of the planned research, with little if any overview of the relevant literature, and only the slightest indication of the detailed instruments and methods to be used. This led to GTM proposals being treated as lacking in sufficient detail for any assessments to be made, and the method itself was seen as apparently providing the researchers—particularly doctoral and masters students—with a justification for only a limited amount of preparation prior to embarking on various, often ill-defined, research activities. Thus, the strengths of the method had come to be seen as its inherent weaknesses. In part, this was based on a misunderstanding of GTM by those in positions of authority claiming knowledge of methods, but it was also due to the ways in which the method was described in various texts and the manner in which it was then taken up by enthusiastic but inexperienced researchers keen to use alternative approaches.

Reporting of Findings

Although there may have been misgivings with regard to use of GTM and, as a consequence, some basis for limiting its growth, in many areas—particularly those associated with the pioneering work that emanated from UCSF in the 1960s and early 1970s—a significant proportion of research publications claimed use of GTM. It rapidly became the most widely claimed of any qualitative method, and, in some areas, it eclipsed all other methods—qualitative and quantitative—taken together. Editors and reviewers, however, were often perplexed by some of the GTM-oriented papers that they received. In many cases, these papers seemed to indicate that GTM amounted to nothing much more than stages of data gathering—usually in the form of open-ended interviews—followed by analysis of this data to produce codes or categories, which then mysteriously led to the “emergence” of some end result. This result itself was sometimes termed a “grounded theory,” but often its conceptual or theoretical claims seemed at best weak and often nonexistent. Moreover, the writers of such accounts often stated that they deliberately ignored any literature that might have shed light on the generic research area and had set off on their research “without any preconceptions” or had somehow discounted any potentially relevant experiences, ideas, or preexisting knowledge that might influence their investigations. Terms such as “theoretical sensitivity,” “emergence,” “theoretical sampling,” and “theoretical saturation”—sometimes accompanied by fleeting references to “grab,” “fit,” and “work”—were perhaps mentioned (often merely in passing) to provide some indicators of rigor and substantiation, but the overall effect on many reviewers and their ilk was one of bewilderment and suspicion.

Constructivist GTM

The overall result of these shortcomings was that GTM came to be regarded as methodologically frivolous or near vacuous. Those with positivist inclinations, particularly if they adhered to Lord Kelvin’s assumptions concerning measurement and quantitative techniques, saw GTM as lacking in any firm foundation (no hypotheses at the outset) and deficient in terms of rigor (no measurement or quantitative verification). Conversely, those with interpretivist predispositions regarded the method as naïve and simplistic, given the characterizations offered by its progenitors—and then parroted by users—of terms such as “data,” “emergence,” and “induction.” Lois Wacquant (2002 , p. 1481) encapsulated this when he described the method as one founded on “an epistemological fairy-tale.”

From the 1960s until the mid-1990s, neither Glaser nor Strauss ever engaged with the ways in which the work of Kuhn, Berger and Luckman, and others of a similar ilk undermined conventional ideas about data, observation, and knowledge claims. Given the central role played by “data,” particularly in Glaser’s writings, this seems somewhat strange; after all, Glaser and Strauss had set out to challenge the research orthodoxy, including those who acted as the gatekeepers and evaluators of theoretical legitimacy and authority. Kuhn’s ideas similarly sought to question the basis on which claims to knowledge were based; a critical enterprise that continues to this day. As I have argued elsewhere ( Bryant, 2009 ), this omission was particularly perplexing with regard to Strauss, given his background, steeped in the work of G. H. Mead and pragmatism.

Whatever the rationales behind both Glaser’s and Strauss’s specific failures to engage with these issues and ideas, there was no way that GTM could remain remote from or indifferent to them. By the mid-1990s, Kathy Charmaz had begun to articulate what she termed a “constructivist” form of GTM, and, in the second edition of the Handbook of Qualitative Research ( Charmaz, 2000 ), she developed her argument, contrasting “constructivist” GTM with “objectivist” GTM, as espoused by Glaser.

For Charmaz, GTM had to take account of the active role of the researcher in moving from data collection through analysis to coding, then iterating through further stages of collection and analysis and coding. Thus, codes and categories did not “emerge” but were the product of deliberate interpretation by the researcher(s). She contrasted this view of GTM with what she termed Glaser’s “objectivist one,” which treats data as something uncovered by the research process, leading to the unearthing of codes and categories, and virtually effacing the researcher as an active participant. Thus, in her later book, Charmaz (2006) used the title Constructing Grounded Theory , rather than Glaser and Strauss’s Discovery .

Soon after this, in the late 1990s and quite independently, I had begun to develop a similar view. I had been presented with several research proposals that alluded to GTM, and, in many cases, this was no more than a thin veneer, hiding the student’s inability to state any clear ideas regarding specific objectives, lack of familiarity with the literature, or aversion to rigorous methods, particularly quantitative ones—sometimes all three. In most cases, when challenged, the student would agree to revise the proposal, remedying the deficiencies and opting to use some other, more prescriptive method. One student, however, persevered with GTM and was able to respond to the criticisms in a manner that indicated the strengths of the method. My own further examination of texts and sources such as Awareness, Discovery , and Basics , indicated that there were indeed valuable and important features of GTM, but that these needed to be separated from the language within which much of the GTM-oriented literature was based—what I termed “the GTM mantra.”

Writers claiming use of GTM often resort to variations or verbatim quotes of one or more of what might best be termed “the mantras of grounded theorists”—for example, “entering the research domain with an open mind,” “allowing the theory to emerge from the data,” “letting the data speak for themselves/itself.” Invocation of any or all of these should not be seen as inevitably leading to inadequate research, although, as has already been pointed out, such statements inevitably lead many reviewers and evaluators to be suspicious of or discount whatever follows.

In the wake of the work undertaken by Charmaz, myself, and others to develop the method in the light of the critiques of positivism or objectivism—particularly those emanating from a constructivist or interpretivist position—two issues come to the fore for anyone using or evaluating GTM:

Data now becomes a problematic concept and cannot simply be incorporated into research without further consideration. Glaser’s admonition against “immaculate conceptualization” is an indispensable part of the researcher’s mindset, but equally essential is an understanding that although the original meaning of “datum” (plural “data”) is something that is “given”—i.e., obvious and apparent and ready-to- hand—our processes of cognition are not as mechanistic and simple as this.

Developing from this is the argument that participants in research settings will encompass multiple standpoints and conceptions of the specific context. Early statements of GTM clearly incorporate this to some extent; for instance, the work on awareness describes the ways in which different people develop and communicate their awareness across different settings. But this range of viewpoints must also include the researcher or research team—something that is missing in early GTM writings and was not really attended to in any systematic manner until Charmaz’s work from the late 1990s onward.

In 2006, Kathy Charmaz published an extended statement of constructivist GTM— Constructing Grounded Theory, thus contrasting this approach with one oriented around “discovery.” Charmaz argues that taking an explicitly constructivist standpoint does impact on the research itself, since data collection will necessarily involve researchers taking account of people’s meanings, intentions, actions, and interpretations both in terms of actually engaging with participants—using interviews—or for other forms of data collection, such as observation. Moreover, this leads to a specifically reflective position on the part of the researcher who now has to consider his or her own participation and interaction in the research setting.

Since the 1990s, researchers have been faced with a number of possible forms of GTM. Initially, the fundamental distinction was that between Glaser’s work and Strauss’s later writings, particularly his joint work with Corbin. This distinction centers on a number of issues around the process of the method itself, particularly ideas about coding and the use of various frameworks or guidelines for developing concepts. The distinction between Glaser’s “orthodox” or “traditional” or “objectivist” GTM and constructivist GTM relates to the ways in which researchers seek to couch the form of justification for their ideas—constructed or discovered. Although there has been a good deal of debate around this issue, when it comes to carrying out research itself, one’s epistemological stance is often only of passing interest. The most important feature of research is its outcome, and it seems to make little or no difference whether the researcher conducted the research from a positivist/objectivist viewpoint or an interpretivist/constructivist one. Glaser and Strauss were correct to see the criteria of a research outcome—concept, theory, framework, or model—in terms of grab and fit, thereby offering alternative criteria for evaluating research outcomes.

The conclusion with regard to GTM and epistemology is that, although it may be useful for researchers to clarify their own disposition, ultimately, this may not really be a factor of any great import. In which case Wacquant’s jibe evaporates, and the true value of GTM lies in its application and impact on the research contexts in which it has been used.

GTM in Practice

The Grounded Theory Method (GTM) comprises a systematic, inductive, and comparative approach for conducting inquiry for the purpose of constructing theory ( Charmaz, 2006 ; Charmaz & Henwood, 2007 ). The method is designed to encourage researchers’ persistent interaction with their data, while remaining constantly involved with their emerging analyses. Data collection and analysis proceed simultaneously and each informs and streamlines the other. The GTM builds empirical checks into the analytic process and leads researchers to examine all possible theoretical explanations for their empirical findings. The iterative process of moving back and forth between empirical data and emerging analysis makes the collected data progressively more focused and the analysis successively more theoretical. GTM is currently the most widely used and popular qualitative research method across a wide range of disciplines and subject areas. Innumerable doctoral students have successfully completed their degrees using GTM. ( Bryant & Charmaz, 2007 b , p. 1)

GTM is a method for qualitative research. 1 It offers an alternative to hypothesis-based research, stipulating that, at the outset, the researcher(s) should not seek to articulate concepts or hypotheses to be tested, but rather that the initial aim should be to gather data as the basis for developing the research project in its initial stages. This can appear perplexing both to researchers and assessors, since there seems to be little in the way of guidance with regard to the research topic itself. In practice, however, researchers always do have some idea of their topics of interest and should be able to offer some initial characterization of the contexts that they are keen to study. This may be a specific location, a set of practices, or specific issues that have engaged the researcher’s interest.

Glaser and Strauss were keen for researchers to approach their study without having formulated ideas about the nature of the “problem” or the specific research question to be asked. In this way, they wanted researchers to be ready to be surprised by their findings, rather than looking for things based on their preconceived ideas. In some cases, researchers have misunderstood this admonition and have made mysterious and frankly laughable claims along the lines of “ignoring” or somehow disconnecting from their own existing knowledge of potentially relevant ideas, concepts, and other materials. (It is this claim, together with the magical invocation of “theory emerging from the data,” that lies at the heart of accusations of GTM being founded on an epistemological fairytale.) Ian Dey (2007) has provided a pithy corrective to this, which should be remembered by all researchers, whether or not they use GTM: “an open mind is not the same as an empty head.”

Bearing this in mind, a grounded theory study should begin with some characterization of the research context and can then continue with the posing of some open-ended and wide-ranging questions. Glaser and Strauss suggested the following high-level GTM questions:

What is happening here? ( Glaser, 1978 )

What is this data a study of? ( Glaser, 1978 , p. 57, Glaser & Strauss, 1967 )

What theoretical category does this datum indicate? ( Glaser, 1978 ) (“What Is Grounded Theory,” PowerPoint presentation, Kathy Charmaz, 2008   http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/208/1/What_is_Grounded_Theory.ppt )

If researchers are concerned or confused about the term “data,” Glaser has clearly and consistently affirmed that “All is data.” This means that researchers can and should plunge into their research context and start looking for data. This may be in the form of initial, open-ended interviews, but it can also be in the form of observations, texts, documents, and anything else that might be relevant.

One of the developments emanating from the constructivist account of GTM can be seen in the range of basic questions that a researcher should be prepared to pose at the outset of a research project. This is not to say that, prior to this, GTM researchers failed to consider such issues; rather, that the constructivist position necessarily prompts researchers toward such considerations. Thus, Charmaz (2006) offers several further questions that develop GTM in a more specifically constructivist manner than is evident in Glaser’s and Strauss’s work. She stresses that articulations of answers to the “what is happening here?” question lead to consideration of “basic social processes” and/or “basic psychological processes,” which Glaser mentions in Theoretical Sensitivity (1978) . Unlike Glaser, however, who remains silent on such matters, Charmaz stresses that such consideration depends on the assessments and judgments made by the researcher(s) reflecting on the findings, and such reflection may encompass analysis of the data using further questions such as:

From whose viewpoint is a given process fundamental?

How do participants’ actions construct [observed social processes]?

Who exerts control over these processes?

What meanings do different participants attribute to the process? ( Charmaz, 2006 , p. 20)

Taken together, all of this gives some guidance to researchers who are faced with the inevitable and awkward issue of how and where to start the research. But it provides a very different starting point from more traditional methods, particularly those developing from hypotheses. This latter approach has been described as deductive , since the hypotheses are often derived—deduced—from existing theoretical frameworks or models. This allows researchers to frame a specific research question, which then guides later activities such as the initial engagement with the research context, sampling, method, and analysis. Researchers following GTM eschew this strategy in favor of a far more open-ended one that many have described as inductive , since it relies on gathering data from which more generic patterns or conceptualizations can be ascertained.

In an age of formal evaluations and institutional review boards or committees, this can be problematic, since researchers will usually be expected to offer clear and concise research questions or hypotheses at the outset, accompanied by a critical review of the relevant literature, in order to sustain the argument that the proposed research offers some value and validity in terms of novelty or affirmation of existing claims. GTM-based research needs to provide other criteria at these early stages, and this can be problematic. Glaser’s position has always been that GTM researchers should avoid the relevant literature at the outset, but, in practice, this often proves impossible and inadvisable. Review committees expect that researchers can position their proposals against existing work, and this can only be done on the basis of a critical review of the literature. Moreover, GTM researchers themselves often point out that they need to explore existing work in order to have confidence in their own studies and ideas.

In recent years, there has been a burgeoning literature offering guidelines and justifications for many qualitative research methods specifically aimed at assisting reviewers and evaluators, as well as researchers, in assessing proposals oriented around methods such as GTM (see Bryant, 2012 ). This should provide a more supportive basis for consideration of such proposals, particularly GTM, where the initial stages provide such a crucial aspect in guiding the later ones.

Coding, Memoing, Theoretical Sampling, Theoretical Saturation

For many people, GTM is regarded as a method that relies on “coding”; indeed, for some, this is the be-all and end-all of the method. Thus, some research papers claiming use of GTM offer nothing further than reference to interview data, together with some codes that have been developed from that material. The outcome is then presented in the form of a diagrammatic model linking these together in some manner. Partly as a consequence of this, many editors and reviewers have something of a low regard for GTM. Many researchers, however particularly those in the early stages of their careers and undertaking doctoral research, start to use GTM and find themselves overwhelmed by the outcome of early coding exercises on their data. It is not unusual for such researchers to produce several hundred codes from one or two initial interviews and then to double this number for subsequent ones—not so much “saturation” as inundation.

As was pointed out earlier, coding was not unique to Glaser and Strauss’s conception of GTM, although the way in which it is incorporated into the method certainly was, in that codes are developed subsequent to the start of data gathering. For many researchers, GTM relies on interview data, and this forms the source material for coding. But it is worth recalling Glaser’s dictum of “all is data” and understanding this as encompassing many other types of source material, for example, documents, articles, web pages, tweets, and so on.

To illustrate some of the issues around coding and the way in which the method progresses, it is best to use some examples, even if they are somewhat constrained. To start with, Table 7.1 shows an extract from a paper on GTM ( Giske & Artinian, 2007 ); the text on the left-hand side is taken verbatim from an interview, the comments on the right-hand side are the researchers’ initial codes.

These initial codes can be thought of as ways in which the researcher has sought to highlight some key aspects of the “data.” For those writing from a basis in “traditional” GTM, as claimed and exemplified by Glaser’s work, this is seen and described in terms of the initial stages in the process of emergence. But the use of a phrase such as “the theory emerges from the data” is problematic, since it obliterates the active roles of the researcher(s). Different researchers may well look at the same data and produce a range of codes; some may well be common to several or all co-researchers, others may only have been developed by one researcher. The example in Table 7.1 is the work of more than one researcher and so may well have come about in its published form only after discussion and revision among the research team. This is grist to the mill for those working within a constructivist orientation; different people will construct or develop codes as the result of complex interactions between themselves and the “data.” This goes on in a far less formal manner all the time and is readily exemplified by the comments section appended to articles on the web; these often result in such disparate comments from readers that one wonders if they have all read the same article.

In GTM, the coding process is far more rigorous and develops through use of the method, as will be described later. But, to demonstrate the initial stages, readers are invited to look at the brief extract—Table 7.2 —from an article published in the UK newspaper The Guardian in late March 2012 as this essay was first being drafted. The column on the right-hand side has been left blank; in a manner similar to that shown in the earlier extract, try to come up with some initial codes of your own. Details of the full article are given as Doctorow (2012) .

Source : A personal experience of working with classical grounded theory: From beginner to experienced grounded theorist 3

Table 7.3 shows the codes that I have made on the basis of my reading of the “data.” Some of the codes you have produced may be similar to those on the right-hand side, others may well be different. The constructivist orientation clarifies the interactive process that underlies the production—construction—of these codes. Those you have produced will depend not only on the extract itself, but also on a host of other factors bearing on your own experiences, interests, and way of understanding and interpreting the extract itself.

One possible set of codes, differing markedly from those in Table 7.3 , might have come from someone deciding to focus on the extract from a journalistic perspective, one responding to the question “what is happening here?” in the sense of contextualizing the article as something published by a British newspaper generally regarded as taking a liberal, or left-of-center stance on many aspects, particularly those concerning citizens’ privacy and rights. There is no right or wrong set of codes to be derived from this initial process; only codes that might prove to be useful in developing an explanation, a model, a theory of some aspect of social life. Glaser and Strauss exemplified this in their early work, with their first extended GTM publication focusing on “awareness” and their subsequent one focusing on “time.”

There are several ways in which initial codes can be developed, and researchers can and should try several of them when first starting to use GTM. The coder in Table 7.1 broke down the data into smaller units and then summarized each part using terms similar or identical to those used in the original. You may have adopted a similar strategy in developing codes for Table 7.2 . The important point to note is that there is no one, correct way of coding; GTM research is oriented toward the development of a model or theory that is “grounded” in the data in some substantive fashion, so that it has “grab,” “fit,” and the like.

I have deliberately used the plural form—researchers—in order to stress that, although much of the GTM literature implies that research is carried out by a single person, in practice, this not usually the case. Carolyn Wiener, in her chapter on teamwork and GTM, offers some important observations on this issue, illustrating her account with observations from her experience as a member of the team that Strauss set up for a GTM research project in the 1970s ( Wiener, 2007 ). Moreover, even when there is a lone researcher—as in the case of most PhD research—this person should be encouraged to discuss codes and coding with their research advisors and their peers. This is common to all strands of GTM, with Glaser continuing to offer GTM workshops where issues such as coding can be discussed with others.

In these early stages, as well as coding, GTM researchers must record their ideas in the form of memos. Memos are a critical part of GTM, and memoing is an activity that often proves extremely valuable to other forms of research. In the earliest stages, memos may be created in the form of fairly unstructured notes and comments about the developing research, focusing on the researcher’s experiences in using the method, as well as on the early results themselves. Thus, an early memo might be in the form of a researcher, new to GTM, reflecting on the experience of coding. Alternatively, an early memo, related to the extract in Table 7.1 , might add some detail to the context of the two interviews used in the coding—interviews 3 and 9—which then might be used in later stages.

As the research develops, memos become more formal in the sense that they should be written with an eye on a wider readership and perhaps eventual publication and dissemination. Glaser has suggested that researchers should aim to develop a set of memos that can then provide the basis for publications. This may not always be possible, but GTM researchers should certainly bear in mind that memoing is an important component of the method, one that should be undertaken in a serious and consistent fashion throughout the research itself. (Further examples of memos can be found in Charmaz, 2006 , chapter 4.)

All coding in GTM should start with “open coding.” Charmaz defines coding as

the process of defining what the data is about. Unlike quantitative data which applies preconceived categories or codes to the data, a grounded theorist creates qualitative codes by defining what he or she sees in the data. Thus, the codes are emergent—they develop as the researcher studies his or her data. The coding process may take the researcher to unforeseen areas and research questions. Grounded theory proponents follow such leads; they do not pursue previously designed research problems that lead to dead-ends.

Open coding is the first stage of coding and usually involves close scrutiny of data. If the data are in the form of written documentation or verbatim or near-verbatim interview transcripts, then this may be done line-by-line or even word-by-word. The examples given in the Tables 7.1–3 demonstrate this level of analysis. The idea is to capture certain key aspects of the data, reducing the complexity by providing a smaller number of more abstract terms.

Subsequent strategies will depend on what has transpired from these initial efforts and also on the choices made by the researcher or research team. But what all strategies have in common are ways in which they facilitate the move from a large number of codes, often anchored in the actual terms or phrases used in the source data, to a narrower set of high-level codes that encompass the richness of the source materials in some manner. This may involve the researcher choosing one specific aspect of the research context for further development, as exemplified in Glaser and Strauss’s first GTM study that focused on the concept of “awareness.” Only later did they develop a second concept of “time” ( Glaser & Strauss, 1968 ).

If we return to the first example in Table 7.1 , the right-hand side of the table now includes these later codes (Table 7.4 )—classified by these authors as “selective coding.” Note that these codes can be seen to encompass the earlier codes but work at a higher level of abstraction. Again, it is not a case of them being correct or incorrect, but being judged in terms of whether or not they move the process of conceptualization forward in the articulation of a useful, grounded theory.

Glaser has consistently advocated that researchers seek to develop codes based on gerunds, and Charmaz strongly supports this. Gerunds are the verb forms of nouns, so, in English, the gerund form of the noun “interception” is “intercepting.” Using gerunds should focus the attention of the research on the processes and actions that, in part, constitute the social context under investigation. Taking this into account, the more focused codes for the extract from The Guardian might now be revised along the lines shown in Table 7.5 —although several of the original codes were themselves in gerund form.

At this stage, it might be useful to create a memo for “Employer intercepting and monitoring”:

A wide range of employers seek to monitor the use of IT and related technologies by their employees. Increasingly, this monitoring extends to a wide range of communication practices, and the monitoring itself has been taken up by other groups, including school administrators checking up on students’ use of school-issued laptops.

Consider the growth of mobile technologies and the extent to which employers might claim justified monitoring of employees using their work-supplied mobile devices such as smart phones, tablet PCs, etc.

Once a researcher has developed his or her ideas to something akin to this level of conceptualization, there is a basis for “theoretical sampling,” a GTM practice that Glaser and Strauss defined as “the process of data collection for generating theory whereby the analyst jointly collects, codes, and analyses his data and decides what data to collect next and where to find them, in order to develop his theory as it emerges” ( Glaser & Strauss, 1967 , p. 45).

And Charmaz notes that “when engaging in theoretical sampling, the researcher seeks people, events, or information to illuminate and define the boundaries and relevance of the categories. Because the purpose of theoretical sampling is to sample to develop the theoretical categories, conducting it can take the researcher across substantive areas.”

In effect, this amounts to a more directed and focused search for evidence that might uphold, enhance, or undermine the initial ideas generated from the earlier findings. Researchers using GTM need to make this move clear in reporting the progress of their work, so that there is no misunderstanding about the strategy employed to identify the sample used.

The issue arises of how large a sample is required for the research to provide the basis for any reasonable and justifiable conclusions. GTM deals with this under the heading of “theoretical saturation”: “the point at which gathering more data about a theoretical category reveals no new properties nor yields any further theoretical insights about the emerging grounded theory” ( Charmaz, 2006 ).

This has proved to be an elusive concept in the literature, and many researchers and reviewers, among others, have wondered not only what the term actually means, but how a researcher might know that he or she has reached this position. In straightforward terms, the response to this is that, for instance, in research based on interviews, saturation is reached when responses given in later stages of the interviewing process yield confirmation of earlier findings, but nothing significant or new. In such cases, the researcher can decide that no further interviews are necessary, and the research itself can be moved on to its final stages.

Some commentators have argued that this decision point appears to be somewhat arbitrary and that, all too often in the literature, the researcher simply reports that saturation was reached, with little or no evidence for this. With regard to the former point, the decision to stop further gathering of evidence based on some criterion of sufficiency applies to all forms of research: when does one have enough data to start to draw some conclusions? In quantitative research, this usually takes the form of statements regarding the size and nature of the sample and its relationship to a wider population. In qualitative research, this is less clear cut, but amounts to the same thing. The key is for researchers to clarify the basis on which they made this decision, so that readers and assessors can decide whether this was indeed justified, and subsequent researchers can then ascertain if there might be a basis for developing this research in other areas or with other respondents. In all cases, there is always the possibility of what might be termed the “black swan research event”; that is, a research finding that completely undermines the pattern that seems to have been developing from findings to date. But that is an inescapable aspect of all forms of investigation.

Using the Literature

Researchers are usually expected to have reviewed the literature relevant to their research topic early in the process. In this way, they can justify their proposal in terms of existing research, current issues and concerns, and the like. When Glaser and Strauss introduced the idea of GTM, they were keen to ensure that researchers, particularly early-career doctoral students, were presented with an alternative to the literature-derived form of research that was predominant at the time, in which doctoral students studied the works of the great theorists and developed their research on some aspect of this.

The outcome was that GTM was seen as advocating that researchers should not engage with the literature in the early stages of their work. Glaser, in particular, has constantly advocated that researchers stay away from the relevant literature until much later in their research, although he has also stressed that researchers should not take this as a reason to stop reading; on the contrary, one should read avidly and widely.

There are a number of problems with this position. The main one is that researchers need to have some familiarity with the current status of work that has been carried out in the general area in which they are interested; otherwise, they have no basis on which they can claim novelty or justification for their plans. Indeed, one of the reasons they plan to do their research may well be that they have knowledge and even practical experience of the area and its key issues. Keeping an open mind is certainly important, but either pretending to have an empty head or deliberately making it so by avoiding the literature is not a feasible option, particularly if one has to present one’s proposal to a review board.

The result is that there is no way of avoiding some form of literature review in the early stages of one’s research. But, in the context of GTM, there are a number of issues to take into account. One of these is that the literature itself can be treated as “data,” with the researcher pointing to key issues and concerns and using these as the basis for some initial coding. This may well help in developing a proposal that, although devoid of specific research questions and hypotheses, still provides readers and assessors with an understanding of the general research area, as well as with the basis for some confidence that the research will develop and lead to appropriate outcomes.

In subsequent stages of the research, it may well prove to be the case that the findings lead away from the initial ideas, often quite markedly. Even if they do not, once the researcher has developed the basis for a new model or theory, there is a need to go back to the literature in a far more focused manner, in order to hold up one’s concepts against those most closely related to the eventual findings. So, the response to anyone who criticizes GTM for ignoring the literature is to point out that, on the contrary, the method requires at least two stages of engagement: one at the start and a potentially more rigorous one near the end of the process.

Results, Theories, and Publications

This chapter is designed to give you a brief overview of GTM, rather than a detailed account. The stages from initial coding through to more focused coding can take a great deal of time, effort, and ingenuity, but that is common to all forms of research. The extent to which research can be supported by methodological recommendations is a controversial one. Glaser and Strauss parted company on precisely this point in the 1990s, with Glaser accusing Strauss of undermining their concept of GTM with what Glaser saw as a far too prescriptive account of coding and generation of theories. (Various accounts of this can be found in Glaser, 1992 ; Bryant & Charmaz, 2007 b , 2007 c )

One of the key issues for GTM, however, must be the outcome and its dissemination. Whatever the differences might be between the various approaches to GTM—Glaser and Strauss’s, Strauss and Corbin’s, Glaser’s, Charmaz and Bryant’s—they all share the aim of providing researchers with a series of pointers to guide them from early ideas and insights toward substantive theories or models that have “grab” and “fit” and that “work” in some manner. The way in which these criteria might be assessed will depend on others having access to the account of the research itself, either in the form of published papers or perhaps more directly as a presentation by the researcher to the other participants ( Turner, 1983 ).

Some of these issues can be illustrated using the examples presented earlier. The full table of codes from Giske et al. (2007) is shown in Table 7.6 , with all three stages of coding. There are now three “final concepts,” all in gerund form. If readers refer to the full paper, they will find a very clear and succinct account of the way in which the researchers moved from this to a grounded theory of “preparative waiting.”

Giske et al. (2007) present their results not only in diagrammatic form, but also with textual explanation. This combination is a practice to be strongly encouraged because diagrams are often useful in summarizing lengthy expositions and also in guiding readers in the development of research accounts; however, they rarely, if ever, serve as satisfactory explanations on their own. A picture may well be worth a thousand words, but researchers need to ensure that the thousand words conjured for the reader bear some resemblance to those intended by the writer.

Theoretical Sensitivity

This is in many ways the holy grail of GTM and, indeed, of research in general. Kelle summarizes it as follows: “In developing categories the sociologist should employ theoretical sensitivity , which means the ability to ‘see relevant data’ and to reflect upon empirical data material with the help of theoretical terms.” Glaser’s book of this title (1978) is a “must read” for those interested in GTM, and it should also be on the reading lists for all courses on research methods and research design.

The concept is very much a case of what might be termed “IKIWISI” rather than “WYSIWYG”; that is, I’ll Know It When I See It , rather than What You See Is What You Get . This is not particularly helpful as a response to novice researchers who ask for more information about the term and perhaps even expect some clear and concise guidelines for ensuring this aspect. The term “grab” is relevant here, since it can also be applied to the way in which one’s research findings “grab” the imagination of one’s peers and colleagues in the relevant research community. Moreover, it brings into consideration the ways in which researchers actively participate in shaping or constructing their studies and eventual findings; that is what Kelle (2007) meant by a researcher’s ability to “see relevant data.”

Perhaps it is best to think of theoretical sensitivity as a research horizon; something that is always in front of us, but which inevitably recedes as we approach it. In any case, it will usually be presumptive of a researcher to claim that he or she has this sensitivity; far better to present one’s findings and assess the ways in which one’s colleagues respond, using this as a guide to the extent to which theoretical sensitivity has been demonstrated.

Alternative Approaches

The various exchanges between Glaser and Strauss in the light of their individual accounts of GTM, and the more recent ones focused on “objectivist” and “constructivist” approaches, might lead researchers to believe that there is some fairly strict gatekeeping going on with GTM. To some extent, this is correct, since there are many instances in which use of the method has been claimed in research proposals and publications but amounts to no more than a cursory incorporation of some aspect of GTM—usually the coding of data after some initial phase of collection.

However, there are many cases in which researchers have used GTM in unorthodox ways, but with good reason and producing results with “grab” and “fit.” 2 For instance, one of my PhD students had set out to administer a fairly structured questionnaire among a group of potential respondents but found that their background stories were far more interesting and did not fit into her initial research strategy. Rather than “forcing” these responses into her initial framework or simply ignoring the rich information that she had unearthed, she changed tack and started to analyze her data using GTM techniques. Since she had already gathered her data, I advised her to code one or two of her interviews and then see what transpired. Eventually, she managed to develop a set of codes and applied this to her other interviews and observations, resulting in a model that certainly had grab and fit.

Future Directions: What Is a (Grounded) Theory Anyway?

I have deliberately used terms such a “model, “framework,” “theory” almost interchangeably in the earlier sections. Some writers make specific distinctions between these terms, but I have chosen not to do so. One of the issues with regard to use of GTM is the expectation that the outcome of any such research should result in a theory—but what exactly is a theory, whether of the grounded variety or any other type?

There is currently a good deal of discussion about the status of the term “theory.” Those arguing in favor of some form of “creationism” or “intelligent design” often make statements to the effect that “evolution is only a theory ,” that it is not fully proven and therefore alternative claims to knowledge, however tenuous or problematic, must be granted equal status. This is to confuse the meanings of the term. In cases such as the theory of gravity, or relativity, or evolution, the term refers to a body of knowledge and concepts that have stood both the test of time and an extended time of testing and various forms of rigorous investigation. In more colloquial use, people talk about their own particular “theories” of anything from the origin of the universe, the economic crash of the last decade, or how to pick winners in horse races—in this sense, a theory is no more than a guess or a hunch.

In an earlier paper ( Bryant, 2009 ), I noted that, for pragmatists such as John Dewey and William James (particularly Dewey), a theory was something to be judged in terms of its usefulness rather than its truthfulness. Consequently, a theory should be regarded as a tool, and a tool is only useful for certain tasks. This, in fact, characterizes what Glaser and Strauss mean by the term “substantive theory” as opposed to “formal theory.”

By substantive theory we mean theory developed for a substantive or empirical area of sociological inquiry, such as patient care, geriatric life styles etc.... By formal theory we mean theory developed for a formal or conceptual area of sociological area such as status passage, stigma, deviant behavior, etc. ( Glaser & Strauss, 1967 )

So, terms such as “grab,” “fit,” and “work” can then be seen as ways in which research outcomes can be judged, whether these results are regarded as theories, models, frameworks, or something else. In all cases, the outcome can be evaluated in terms of whether it has some use within the context from which it was derived. These criteria should not be restricted to GTM-oriented research, but if this form of research is to be assessed in terms of its “theoretical” outputs, then it is important that the nature of such results is understood.

GTM has developed into a mature family of methods and now provides researchers with a host of possible strategies, techniques, and guidelines. It is important that the intricacies and rich potential of GTM are understood, both by researchers and by those who judge and evaluate research proposals, funding applications, and articles submitted for publication. Use of the method continues to grow and so, too, does the supporting literature on the method itself. The extent to which researchers now have to articulate their methodological strategies is to be welcomed, but not if it starts to obscure the actual research itself. It is important that those involved in research, particularly those in positions of authority whose decisions can encourage or deter research projects, understand the intricacies of the plethora of research methods; and also that researchers themselves clarify and justify their research approaches so that their various audiences can assess the ways in which their efforts have achieved fruition.

Locating GTM within the pragmatist tradition, as I have argued elsewhere ( Bryant, 2009 ), implies an understanding of the process of research as a continuing dialogue. All outcomes must be seen as, at best, provisional, affording the basis for further research and investigation. In the light of this, I conclude by offering some issues for readers to ponder and also a list of sources, to some of which I have added a brief indication or comment.

To what extent is a researcher’s epistemological position important in guiding their research? Has it been an issue in your own research or in the way in which you have framed research proposals with which you have been involved?

There is now a wide variety of software tools available, either specifically aimed at GTM or supporting qualitative research in more general ways. To what extent do such tools impact on the research process, either positively or negatively?

Try to read several articles in which the researchers indicate that they have used GTM. How do these differ from each other? What do they have in common?

GTM-based research does not start out with specific hypotheses; indeed, hypotheses can be the result of this form of research. How should such hypotheses be taken up and used in further research? Can you find any examples in the literature in your field of expertise?

Suggestions for Further Reading

Although the three books published by Glaser and Strauss in the 1960s are rightly regarded as the founding texts for GTM, the best introduction to the method itself—together with clearly worked examples of coding, memo-writing, and other key features—is to be found in Charmaz’s Constructing Grounded Theory . Glaser’s Theoretical Sensitivity should be read thoroughly, as should the Appendix to Glaser and Strauss’s Awareness . The Handbook of Grounded Theory provides a valuable overview of many aspects of GTM in recent years, with contributions from Glaser, as well as from many of those who were part of the UCSF doctoral program in the 1960s. There are also chapters from German-speaking contributors who were influenced directly or indirectly by Strauss as he lectured on the method in Germany.

If you contemplate using GTM in your own research, you should use keywords or other searches to review recent journals in your area of study to find examples of the ways in which others have used the method. This seems to go against Glaser’s line that you should not look at the relevant literature until you reach the later stages of your research. But this seems far less feasible with the burgeoning of research and the demand by reviewers and evaluators that a case be made for a research proposal to demonstrate awareness of existing work, together with critical insights regarding prior work and the methods employed. It is worth reiterating Dey’s point about “an open mind not being the same as an empty head”—something that should apply to all forms of research.

This section offers only a brief account of the method—a more detailed exposition will appear in my forthcoming book on GTM ( Bryant, 2014 ).

Several examples of this will be described in my forthcoming book.

Tove Giske, Bergen Deaconess University College Bergen, Norway; Barbara Artinian, School of Nursing Azusa Pacific University Azusa, California © 2007 Giske et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Your complete guide to grounded theory research.

11 min read If you have an area of interest, but no hypothesis yet, try grounded theory research. You conduct data collection and analysis, forming a theory based on facts. Read our ultimate guide for everything you need to know.

What is grounded theory in research?

Grounded theory is a systematic qualitative research method that collects empirical data first, and then creates a theory ‘grounded’ in the results.

The constant comparative method was developed by Glaser and Strauss, described in their book, Awareness of Dying (1965). They are seen as the founders of classic grounded theory.

Research teams use grounded theory to analyze social processes and relationships.

Because of the important role of data, there are key stages like data collection and data analysis that need to happen in order for the resulting data to be useful.

The grounded research results are compared to strengthen the validity of the findings to arrive at stronger defined theories. Once the data analysis cannot continue to refine the new theories down, a final theory is confirmed.

Grounded research is different from experimental research or scientific inquiry as it does not need a hypothesis theory at the start to verify. Instead, the evolving theory is based on facts and evidence discovered during each stage.Also, grounded research also doesn’t have a preconceived understanding of events or happenings before the qualitative research commences.

Free eBook: Qualitative research design handbook

When should you use grounded theory research?

Grounded theory research is useful for businesses when a researcher wants to look into a topic that has existing theory or no current research available. This means that the qualitative research results will be unique and can open the doors to the social phenomena being investigated.

In addition, businesses can use this qualitative research as the primary evidence needed to understand whether it’s worth placing investment into a new line of product or services, if the research identifies key themes and concepts that point to a solvable commercial problem.

Grounded theory methodology

There are several stages in the grounded theory process:

1. Data planning

The researcher decides what area they’re interested in.

They may create a guide to what they will be collecting during the grounded theory methodology. They will refer to this guide when they want to check the suitability of the qualitative data, as they collect it, to avoid preconceived ideas of what they know impacting the research.

A researcher can set up a grounded theory coding framework to identify the correct data. Coding is associating words, or labels, that are useful to the social phenomena that is being investigated. So, when the researcher sees these words, they assign the data to that category or theme.

In this stage, you’ll also want to create your open-ended initial research questions. Here are the main differences between open and closed-ended questions:

These will need to be adapted as the research goes on and more tangents and areas to explore are discovered. To help you create your questions, ask yourself:

• What are you trying to explain?
• What experiences do you need to ask about?
• Who will you ask and why?

2. Data collection and analysis

Data analysis happens at the same time as data collection. In grounded theory analysis, this is also known as constant comparative analysis, or theoretical sampling.

The researcher collects qualitative data by asking open-ended questions in interviews and surveys, studying historical or archival data, or observing participants and interpreting what is seen. This collected data is transferred into transcripts.

The categories or themes are compared and further refined by data, until there are only a few strong categories or themes remaining. Here is where coding occurs, and there are different levels of coding as the categories or themes are refined down:

• Data collection (Initial coding stage): Read through the data line by line
• Open coding stage: Read through the transcript data several times, breaking down the qualitative research data into excerpts, and make summaries of the concept or theme.
• Axial coding stage: Read through and compare further data collection to summarize concepts or themes to look for similarities and differences. Make defined summaries that help shape an emerging theory.
• Selective coding stage: Use the defined summaries to identify a strong core concept or theme.

During analysis, the researcher will apply theoretical sensitivity to the collected data they uncover, so that the meaning of nuances in what they see can be fully understood.

This coding process repeats until the researcher has reached theoretical saturation. In grounded theory analysis, this is where all data has been researched and there are no more possible categories or themes to explore.

3. Data analysis is turned into a final theory

The researcher takes the core categories and themes that they have gathered and integrates them into one central idea (a new theory) using selective code. This final grounded theory concludes the research.

The new theory should be a few simple sentences that describe the research, indicating what was and was not covered in it.

An example of using grounded theory in business

One example of how grounded theory may be used in business is to support HR teams by analyzing data to explore reasons why people leave a company.

For example, a company with a high attrition rate that has not done any research on this area before may choose grounded theory to understand key reasons why people choose to leave.

Researchers may start looking at the quantitative data around departures over the year and look for patterns. Coupled with this, they may conduct qualitative data research through employee engagement surveys , interview panels for current employees, and exit interviews with leaving employees.

From this information, they may start coding transcripts to find similarities and differences (coding) picking up on general themes and concepts. For example, a group of excepts like:

• “The hours I worked were far too long and I hated traveling home in the dark”
• “My manager didn’t appreciate the work I was doing, especially when I worked late”
• There are no good night bus routes home that I could take safely”

Using open coding, a researcher could compare excerpts and suggest the themes of managerial issues, a culture of long hours and lack of traveling routes at night.

With more samples and information, through axial coding, stronger themes of lack of recognition and having too much work (which led people to working late), could be drawn out from the summaries of the concepts and themes.

This could lead to a selective coding conclusion that people left because they were ‘overworked and under-appreciated’.

With this information, a grounded theory can help HR teams look at what teams do day to day, exploring ways to spread workloads or reduce them. Also, there could be training supplied to management and employees to engage professional development conversations better.

 Advantages of grounded theory

• No need for hypothesis – Researchers don’t need to know the details about the topic they want to investigate in advance, as the grounded theory methodology will bring up the information.
• Lots of flexibility – Researchers can take the topic in whichever direction they think is best, based on what the data is telling them. This means that exploration avenues that may be off-limits in traditional experimental research can be included.
• Multiple stages improve conclusion – Having a series of coding stages that refine the data into clear and strong concepts or themes means that the grounded theory will be more useful, relevant and defined.
• Data-first – Grounded theory relies on data analysis in the first instance, so the conclusion is based on information that has strong data behind it. This could be seen as having more validity.

Disadvantages of grounded theory

• Theoretical sensitivity dulled – If a researcher does not know enough about the topic being investigated, then their theoretical sensitivity about what data means may be lower and information may be missed if it is not coded properly.
• Large topics take time – There is a significant time resource required by the researcher to properly conduct research, evaluate the results and compare and analyze each excerpt. If the research process finds more avenues for investigation, for example, when excerpts contradict each other, then the researcher is required to spend more time doing qualitative inquiry.
• Bias in interpreting qualitative data – As the researcher is responsible for interpreting the qualitative data results, and putting their own observations into text, there can be researcher bias that would skew the data and possibly impact the final grounded theory.
• Qualitative research is harder to analyze than quantitative data – unlike numerical factual data from quantitative sources, qualitative data is harder to analyze as researchers will need to look at the words used, the sentiment and what is being said.
• Not repeatable – while the grounded theory can present a fact-based hypothesis, the actual data analysis from the research process cannot be repeated easily as opinions, beliefs and people may change over time. This may impact the validity of the grounded theory result.

What tools will help with grounded theory?

Evaluating qualitative research can be tough when there are several analytics platforms to manage and lots of subjective data sources to compare. Some tools are already part of the office toolset, like video conferencing tools and excel spreadsheets.

However, most tools are not purpose-built for research, so researchers will be manually collecting and managing these files – in the worst case scenario, by pen and paper!

Use a best-in-breed management technology solution to collect all qualitative research and manage it in an organized way without large time resources or additional training required.

Qualtrics provides a number of qualitative research analysis tools, like Text iQ , powered by Qualtrics iQ, provides powerful machine learning and native language processing to help you discover patterns and trends in text.

This also provides you with research process tools:

• Sentiment analysis — a technique to help identify the underlying sentiment (say positive, neutral, and/or negative) in qualitative research text responses
• Topic detection/categorisation — The solution makes it easy to add new qualitative research codes and group by theme. Easily group or bucket of similar themes that can be relevant for the business and the industry (eg. ‘Food quality’, ‘Staff efficiency’ or ‘Product availability’)

Related resources

Market intelligence 10 min read, marketing insights 11 min read, ethnographic research 11 min read, qualitative vs quantitative research 13 min read, qualitative research questions 11 min read, qualitative research design 12 min read, primary vs secondary research 14 min read, request demo.

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Grounded Theory: What It Is + Approach in Qualitative Research

In the realm of qualitative research, the grounded theory approach stands as a stalwart methodology that has reshaped how researchers unravel the complexities of the human experience. 

This approach, developed by Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss in the 1960s, provides a systematic framework for generating theories from empirical data.

Grounded theory methods involve systematically deriving theories from qualitative data, facilitating a deep understanding of complex phenomena. The grounded theory method empowers researchers to construct concepts and theories directly from the data they collect, fostering a comprehensive and contextually rich analysis.

In this blog, we delve into the core principles of the grounded theory approach and explore how platforms like QuestionPro can enhance its application in qualitative research.

Understanding the Grounded Theory Approach

Grounded theory is a qualitative research methodology that involves developing theories directly from the data collected during the research process instead of relying on pre-existing theories or hypotheses. 

This approach aims to generate insights and understanding about a particular phenomenon by systematically analyzing and coding the data to uncover patterns, relationships, and concepts. 

It emphasizes research’s iterative and inductive nature, allowing theories to emerge organically from the data rather than being imposed on it. This methodology is commonly used in social sciences and other fields to explore complex social processes and generate new theories from empirical observations and interviews.

The Importance of Grounded Theory Research?

Grounded theory research is particularly well-suited for situations where you want to develop a new theory or gain a deeper understanding of a complex phenomenon that hasn’t been extensively studied before. Here are some scenarios where such theory research can be valuable:

Exploratory Studies

When you’re exploring a new area of research where little prior theory exists, it can help you generate theories and concepts directly from the data.

Complex Social Processes

It can provide insights into the underlying dynamics if you’re studying complex social processes, behaviors, interactions, or cultural phenomena.

Emergent Phenomena

When examining a relatively new or rapidly evolving phenomenon, grounded theory can help you uncover the underlying structures and trends driving its emergence.

Theory Building

If you aim to develop a new theoretical framework based on empirical evidence, it provides a systematic approach to theory building grounded in data.

Contextual Understanding

When you want to deeply understand a phenomenon within its specific context, it allows you to capture the nuances and intricacies that more hypothesis-driven methods might miss.

Understanding Participant Perspectives

It effectively captures participants’ perspectives and experiences in a detailed and nuanced manner.

Diverse Data Types

It’s useful when you’re working with diverse types of qualitative data, such as interviews, observations, field notes, or textual documents.

Challenging Assumptions

Grounded theory allows you to develop insights that contradict or expand upon established knowledge to challenge existing assumptions or theories.

Interdisciplinary Research

This can be valuable in interdisciplinary research, where you’re attempting to integrate perspectives from multiple disciplines to develop new insights.

Theory Development in Practical Fields

In fields like education, healthcare, or social work, where practical solutions are needed, it can help in developing theories that inform real-world applications.

Key steps of the grounded theory approach

The grounded theory process involves several key steps researchers follow to generate theories from empirical data systematically. While there might be variations and adaptations in different researchers’ approaches, the following steps are commonly associated with the grounded theory methodology:

Data Collection

The foundation of the constructivist grounded theory approach lies in collecting data through methods such as interviews, observations, and document analysis. This raw data serves as the bedrock for theory construction.

Open Coding

Researchers meticulously dissect the data, assigning initial codes to capture the fundamental concepts present. This stage facilitates unbiased exploration, as researchers do not force-fit data into pre-existing categories.

Axial Coding

Building upon the initial codes, researchers start categorizing and interlinking them to form more comprehensive themes. The aim is to identify connections and relationships between these categories.

Selective Coding

The process evolves further as a core category central to the phenomenon under study emerges. Researchers refine and establish links between this core category and other concepts.

Constant Comparison

Throughout the journey, researchers consistently compare new data with existing codes and categories, refining their understanding and allowing the theory to evolve organically.

Theoretical Sampling

Researchers strategically select new data sources or participants to enrich the theory’s development and validation, ensuring that the existing theory resonates with diverse perspectives.

The journey reaches its zenith with theoretical sensitivity saturation, where new data ceases to alter the theory significantly. This signifies a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon.

Writing the Theory

Researchers compile their insights into a coherent narrative that encapsulates emerging relationships, patterns, and concepts. This narrative becomes the tangible outcome of the grounded theory study.

Advantages and disadvantages of grounded theory

Here are some advantages and disadvantages of using grounded theory:

Advantages:

• Emergent Theory: Theories are developed from data, allowing for fresh insights.
• Flexibility: Adaptable to various research contexts and dynamic phenomena.
• Holistic Understanding: In-depth immersion in data leads to comprehensive insights.
• Conceptualization: Generates new concepts and theoretical frameworks.
• Contextual Insight: Focuses on understanding phenomena within their social and cultural context.

Disadvantages:

• Time-Consuming: Iterative process requires significant time and effort.
• Subjectivity: Interpretation influenced by researcher bias.
• Lack of Reproducibility: Lack of standardized procedure can hinder replication.
• Initial Data Collection Challenges: Open-ended data collection may need clearer stopping criteria.
• Theory Ambiguity: Generated theories might be open to varied interpretations.
• Less Quantitative Emphasis: Not suitable for producing quantitative or statistical results.

QuestionPro’s role in enhancing the grounded theory approach

In their study of online community dynamics, the researchers employed grounded theory analysis to uncover emergent patterns of interaction and collaboration among participants. Platforms like QuestionPro offer a range of tools that complement and enhance the grounded theory Approach in qualitative research:

• Survey Design: Design your survey in QuestionPro to collect open-ended responses. These could be in the form of text answers, comments, or even multimedia content.
• Data Collection: Distribute the survey to your participants. You can target specific groups or populations based on your research objectives.
• Data Analysis: Once you collect the qualitative data, you can export the responses from QuestionPro. Then, you can follow the steps of the grounded theory procedures, including open coding, axial coding, and selective coding, using specialized qualitative analysis software like NVivo, Dedoose, or even manual methods.
• Theory Development: Analyze the data and identify emergent concepts and patterns. Through iterative coding and constant comparative method, you can develop grounded theory research that explains the phenomenon you’re investigating.

The grounded theory Approach remains a cornerstone in qualitative research, fostering a dynamic interplay between data and emerging theory construction. 

QuestionPro’s suite of tools lends a helping hand to researchers embarking on this journey, providing support across data collection, analysis, collaboration, and visualization. 

As the landscape of research evolves, the synergy between methodologies like the grounded theory approach and innovative platforms like QuestionPro paves the way for deeper insights into the tapestry of human experiences.

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10 Grounded Theory Examples (Qualitative Research Method)

Grounded theory is a qualitative research method that involves the construction of theory from data rather than testing theories through data (Birks & Mills, 2015).

In other words, a grounded theory analysis doesn’t start with a hypothesis or theoretical framework, but instead generates a theory during the data analysis process .

This method has garnered a notable amount of attention since its inception in the 1960s by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss (Corbin & Strauss, 2015). 

Grounded Theory Definition and Overview

A central feature of grounded theory is the continuous interplay between data collection and analysis (Bringer, Johnston, & Brackenridge, 2016).

Grounded theorists start with the data, coding and considering each piece of collected information (for instance, behaviors collected during a psychological study).

As more information is collected, the researcher can reflect upon the data in an ongoing cycle where data informs an ever-growing and evolving theory (Mills, Bonner & Francis, 2017).

As such, the researcher isn’t tied to testing a hypothesis, but instead, can allow surprising and intriguing insights to emerge from the data itself.

Applications of grounded theory are widespread within the field of social sciences . The method has been utilized to provide insight into complex social phenomena such as nursing, education, and business management (Atkinson, 2015).

Grounded theory offers a sound methodology to unearth the complexities of social phenomena that aren’t well-understood in existing theories (McGhee, Marland & Atkinson, 2017).

While the methods of grounded theory can be labor-intensive and time-consuming, the rich, robust theories this approach produces make it a valuable tool in many researchers’ repertoires.

Real-Life Grounded Theory Examples

Title: A grounded theory analysis of older adults and information technology

Citation: Weatherall, J. W. A. (2000). A grounded theory analysis of older adults and information technology. Educational Gerontology , 26 (4), 371-386.

Description: This study employed a grounded theory approach to investigate older adults’ use of information technology (IT). Six participants from a senior senior were interviewed about their experiences and opinions regarding computer technology. Consistent with a grounded theory angle, there was no hypothesis to be tested. Rather, themes emerged out of the analysis process. From this, the findings revealed that the participants recognized the importance of IT in modern life, which motivated them to explore its potential. Positive attitudes towards IT were developed and reinforced through direct experience and personal ownership of technology.

Title: A taxonomy of dignity: a grounded theory study

Citation: Jacobson, N. (2009). A taxonomy of dignity: a grounded theory study. BMC International health and human rights , 9 (1), 1-9.

Description: This study aims to develop a taxonomy of dignity by letting the data create the taxonomic categories, rather than imposing the categories upon the analysis. The theory emerged from the textual and thematic analysis of 64 interviews conducted with individuals marginalized by health or social status , as well as those providing services to such populations and professionals working in health and human rights. This approach identified two main forms of dignity that emerged out of the data: “ human dignity ” and “social dignity”.

Title: A grounded theory of the development of noble youth purpose

Citation: Bronk, K. C. (2012). A grounded theory of the development of noble youth purpose. Journal of Adolescent Research , 27 (1), 78-109.

Description: This study explores the development of noble youth purpose over time using a grounded theory approach. Something notable about this study was that it returned to collect additional data two additional times, demonstrating how grounded theory can be an interactive process. The researchers conducted three waves of interviews with nine adolescents who demonstrated strong commitments to various noble purposes. The findings revealed that commitments grew slowly but steadily in response to positive feedback, with mentors and like-minded peers playing a crucial role in supporting noble purposes.

Title: A grounded theory of the flow experiences of Web users

Citation: Pace, S. (2004). A grounded theory of the flow experiences of Web users. International journal of human-computer studies , 60 (3), 327-363.

Description: This study attempted to understand the flow experiences of web users engaged in information-seeking activities, systematically gathering and analyzing data from semi-structured in-depth interviews with web users. By avoiding preconceptions and reviewing the literature only after the theory had emerged, the study aimed to develop a theory based on the data rather than testing preconceived ideas. The study identified key elements of flow experiences, such as the balance between challenges and skills, clear goals and feedback, concentration, a sense of control, a distorted sense of time, and the autotelic experience.

Title: Victimising of school bullying: a grounded theory

Citation: Thornberg, R., Halldin, K., Bolmsjö, N., & Petersson, A. (2013). Victimising of school bullying: A grounded theory. Research Papers in Education , 28 (3), 309-329.

Description: This study aimed to investigate the experiences of individuals who had been victims of school bullying and understand the effects of these experiences, using a grounded theory approach. Through iterative coding of interviews, the researchers identify themes from the data without a pre-conceived idea or hypothesis that they aim to test. The open-minded coding of the data led to the identification of a four-phase process in victimizing: initial attacks, double victimizing, bullying exit, and after-effects of bullying. The study highlighted the social processes involved in victimizing, including external victimizing through stigmatization and social exclusion, as well as internal victimizing through self-isolation, self-doubt, and lingering psychosocial issues.

Hypothetical Grounded Theory Examples

Suggested Title: “Understanding Interprofessional Collaboration in Emergency Medical Services”

Suggested Data Analysis Method: Coding and constant comparative analysis

How to Do It: This hypothetical study might begin with conducting in-depth interviews and field observations within several emergency medical teams to collect detailed narratives and behaviors. Multiple rounds of coding and categorizing would be carried out on this raw data, consistently comparing new information with existing categories. As the categories saturate, relationships among them would be identified, with these relationships forming the basis of a new theory bettering our understanding of collaboration in emergency settings. This iterative process of data collection, analysis, and theory development, continually refined based on fresh insights, upholds the essence of a grounded theory approach.

Suggested Title: “The Role of Social Media in Political Engagement Among Young Adults”

Suggested Data Analysis Method: Open, axial, and selective coding

Explanation: The study would start by collecting interaction data on various social media platforms, focusing on political discussions engaged in by young adults. Through open, axial, and selective coding, the data would be broken down, compared, and conceptualized. New insights and patterns would gradually form the basis of a theory explaining the role of social media in shaping political engagement, with continuous refinement informed by the gathered data. This process embodies the recursive essence of the grounded theory approach.

Suggested Title: “Transforming Workplace Cultures: An Exploration of Remote Work Trends”

Suggested Data Analysis Method: Constant comparative analysis

Explanation: The theoretical study could leverage survey data and in-depth interviews of employees and bosses engaging in remote work to understand the shifts in workplace culture. Coding and constant comparative analysis would enable the identification of core categories and relationships among them. Sustainability and resilience through remote ways of working would be emergent themes. This constant back-and-forth interplay between data collection, analysis, and theory formation aligns strongly with a grounded theory approach.

Suggested Title: “Persistence Amidst Challenges: A Grounded Theory Approach to Understanding Resilience in Urban Educators”

Suggested Data Analysis Method: Iterative Coding

How to Do It: This study would involve collecting data via interviews from educators in urban school systems. Through iterative coding, data would be constantly analyzed, compared, and categorized to derive meaningful theories about resilience. The researcher would constantly return to the data, refining the developing theory with every successive interaction. This procedure organically incorporates the grounded theory approach’s characteristic iterative nature.

Suggested Title: “Coping Strategies of Patients with Chronic Pain: A Grounded Theory Study”

Suggested Data Analysis Method: Line-by-line inductive coding

How to Do It: The study might initiate with in-depth interviews of patients who’ve experienced chronic pain. Line-by-line coding, followed by memoing, helps to immerse oneself in the data, utilizing a grounded theory approach to map out the relationships between categories and their properties. New rounds of interviews would supplement and refine the emergent theory further. The subsequent theory would then be a detailed, data-grounded exploration of how patients cope with chronic pain.

Grounded theory is an innovative way to gather qualitative data that can help introduce new thoughts, theories, and ideas into academic literature. While it has its strength in allowing the “data to do the talking”, it also has some key limitations – namely, often, it leads to results that have already been found in the academic literature. Studies that try to build upon current knowledge by testing new hypotheses are, in general, more laser-focused on ensuring we push current knowledge forward. Nevertheless, a grounded theory approach is very useful in many circumstances, revealing important new information that may not be generated through other approaches. So, overall, this methodology has great value for qualitative researchers, and can be extremely useful, especially when exploring specific case study projects . I also find it to synthesize well with action research projects .

Atkinson, P. (2015). Grounded theory and the constant comparative method: Valid qualitative research strategies for educators. Journal of Emerging Trends in Educational Research and Policy Studies, 6 (1), 83-86.

Birks, M., & Mills, J. (2015). Grounded theory: A practical guide . London: Sage.

Bringer, J. D., Johnston, L. H., & Brackenridge, C. H. (2016). Using computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software to develop a grounded theory project. Field Methods, 18 (3), 245-266.

Corbin, J., & Strauss, A. (2015). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory . Sage publications.

McGhee, G., Marland, G. R., & Atkinson, J. (2017). Grounded theory research: Literature reviewing and reflexivity. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 29 (3), 654-663.

Mills, J., Bonner, A., & Francis, K. (2017). Adopting a Constructivist Approach to Grounded Theory: Implications for Research Design. International Journal of Nursing Practice, 13 (2), 81-89.

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Qualitative study design: Grounded theory

• Qualitative study design
• Phenomenology

Grounded theory

• Ethnography
• Narrative inquiry
• Action research
• Case Studies
• Field research
• Focus groups
• Observation
• Surveys & questionnaires
• Study Designs Home

Theory development.

Grounded theory proposes that careful observation of the social world can lead to the construction of theory (Rice & Ezzy, 1999). It is iterative and evolving, aiming to construct new theory from collected data that accounts for those data. It is also known as the “grounded theory method”, although the terms have become interchangeable (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007).

Grounded theory characteristics include:

• Data collection and analysis occurring simultaneously, with one informing the other.
• Data grouped into concepts, categories and themes.
• A data collection process influenced by the simultaneous development of those concepts, categories and themes.

Notably, data collection is cyclical and reflective. This is different from the more linear processes occurring in other methodologies.

Theoretical sampling is a key aspect of the sampling stage of grounded theory. Recruitment continues until the sample finally represents all aspects that make up the theory the data represent (Starks & Brown Trinidad, 2007). Participants are recruited based on their different experiences of a phenomenon.

Researchers collect participant data using these methods:

• Examination of documents
• Focus groups and interviews

Focus groups and interviews are typically being more practical in health research than observation (Starks & Brown Trinidad, 2007).

After the initial phase of data collection, researchers repeat the following cycle of steps:

Researchers’ developing understanding of the concepts, categories and relationships informs their actions at each step. These elements result in a theoretical framework explaining the data. 

This cycle reflects two crucial components of grounded theory:

• The process of coding, sorting and organising data. This aims to increasingly move towards more abstract terms in order to develop a related theory for the data
• The principle of constant comparison. This refers to the process of noting issues of interest in data and comparing them to other examples to identify similarities and differences.
• Widely used across a wide range of disciplines (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007).  
• Facilitates theory construction and the construction of fresh concepts. It also avoids assuming structures are stable (Charmaz, 2017). 
• Useful for when researchers wish to explain a process, not to test an existing theory. 

Limitations

• Inherently not useful for the application of received theory. 
• Not useful for testing hypotheses. 
• Analysis of data involves elements of researcher’s own subjective judgement.

Example questions

• How do perioperative nurses foster a culture of safety and risk aversion? 
• What is the impact of hand nerve disorders on a person’s function, activity and participation? 
• What are the barriers to health care access for a refugee population? 

Example studies

Attree, M. (2001). Patients' and relatives' experiences and perspectives of 'Good' and 'Not so Good' quality care . J Adv Nurs , 33(4), 456-466. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2648.2001.01689.x 

Lingard, L., Reznick, R., Espin, S., Regehr, G., & DeVito, I. (2002). Team communications in the operating room: talk patterns, sites of tension, and implications for novices . Acad Med , 77(3), 232-237. doi: 10.1097/00001888-200203000-00013 

Pettersson, S., Ekstrom, M. P., & Berg, C. M. (2013). Practices of weight regulation among elite athletes in combat sports: a matter of mental advantage? J Athl Train , 48(1), 99-108. doi: 10.4085/1062-6050-48.1.04 

Bryant, A., & Charmaz, K. (2007). The SAGE handbook of grounded theory : SAGE Publications Ltd.

Charmaz, K. (2017). An introduction to grounded theory : SAGE Publications Ltd. 

Lingard, L., Albert, M., & Levinson, W. (2008). Grounded theory, mixed methods, and action research . BMJ , 337, a567. doi: 10.1136/bmj.39602.690162.47 

Rice, P. L., & Ezzy, D. (1999). Qualitative research methods: a health focus . South Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press. 

Starks, H., & Brown Trinidad, S. (2007). Choose Your Method: A Comparison of Phenomenology, Discourse Analysis, and Grounded Theory . Qualitative Health Research , 17(10), 1372-1380. doi: 10.1177/1049732307307031 

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An Overview of Grounded Theory in Qualitative Research

Using grounded theory, you can examine a specific process or phenomenon and develop new theories derived from the collected real-world data and their analysis.

Grounded theory research is an inductive approach in which a theory is developed based on data. This is the opposite of the traditional hypothesis-deductive research approaches where hypotheses are formulated and are then tried to be proved or disproved.

In grounded theory, the process of collecting data, and developing theory is a continuous one and should be incorporated in the research design. The process of collecting and analyzing data is repeated until theoretical saturation is reached or no new insights will be gained from additional data.

In Situational Analysis Extending Grounded Theory with Dr. Adele Clarke, Clarke discusses situational analysis as an extension of grounded theory for analyzing qualitative data including interview, ethnographic, historical, visual, and/or other discursive materials. Clarke describes how it is especially useful for multi-site research, feminist, and critical inquiry. To dive deeper into the messy complexities in data and understand relations among the elements constitutive of the situation, watch Clarke’s webinar Situational Analysis Extending Grounded Theory.

>> View Webinar: Situational Analysis Extending Grounded Theory

What is Grounded Theory Approach in Research?

The grounded theory approach is a qualitative research methodology that attempts to unravel the meanings of people's interactions, social actions, and experiences. In other words, these explanations are grounded in the participants' own interpretations or explanations.

In 1967, Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss published the book, The Discovery Of Grounded Theory which introduced this method. Many disciplines have since used grounded theory, including anthropology, sociology, economics, psychology, and public health.

Qualitative research using grounded theory was regarded as being groundbreaking upon its introduction. By using the inductive methodology, data (such as interviews and observations, and on rare occasions, historical data, archival data, and more) could be analyzed as they are being collected. They sought to move away from the dominant practice in the 1950s and 60s of starting with a theoretical framework which needed to be verified. They turned that practice on its head by starting with the data to develop theory.

Grounded theory has the following salient features:

Begins with data- Researchers using the grounded theory approach typically start with a case study by observing an individual or group in action. Through an analysis of cases, researchers formulate a tentative definition of their concept. An explanation for the construct is later crafted based on this case analysis.

A personal approach- In this method, researchers study participants as they go about their daily activities, observe them interacting with others, conduct individual or group interviews, and ask participants specific questions about their observations, daily lives, experiences, or other sources relevant to the study.

The application of grounded theory qualitative research is a dynamic and flexible way to answer questions that can't be addressed by other research methods.

What is Grounded Theory in Research?

A grounded theory is often used in cases where there is no existing theory that explains the phenomenon being studied. It is also possible to use it if there is an existing theory, but it is potentially incomplete because the information wasn’t gathered from the group you intend to research.

Check out ScienceDirect's page for more examples on how grounded theory can be applied .

What are the Advantages of Grounded Theory?

Grounded theory offers various advantages.

Results reflect real-world settings

By using grounded theory, one can develop theories that are based on observations and interviews with real subjects in real situations. This results in findings that more closely reflect reality. In contrast, other types of research take place in less natural settings, such as focus groups and lab settings.

Excellent for discovering new things

The premise of grounded theory is that you discover new theories by inductive means. In other words, you don't assume anything about the outcome and aren't concerned about validating or describing it. Instead, you use the data you collect to inform your analysis and your theoretical construct, resulting in new insights.

Streamlined data gathering and analysis

Analyzing and collecting data go hand in hand. Data is collected, analyzed, and as you gain insight from analysis, you continue gathering more data. In this way, your data collection will be adequate to explain the results of your analysis.

Findings are tightly connected to the data

In grounded theory, the outcome is determined primarily by collected data, so findings are tightly tied to those data. It contrasts with other research methods that are primarily constructed through external frameworks or theories that are so far removed from the data.

Protection from confirmation bias

Because gathering data and analyzing it are closely intertwined, researchers are truly observing what emerges from data. By having a buffer, you avoid confirming preconceived notions about the topic.

Provides analysis strategies

An important aspect of grounded theory is that it provides specific strategies for analysis. Grounded theory may be characterized as an open-ended method, but its analysis strategies keep you organized and analytical throughout the research process.

Disadvantages of Grounded Theory

In addition to the multiple advantages of grounded theory listed above, there are a few disadvantages of grounded theory, and qualitative methods in general, that are important to consider.

Grounded theory is often a time-consuming process that involves collecting data from multiple sources, analyzing the data for patterns and themes, and then finally coding the data – all steps that can take significant time if not using qualitative data analysis software like NVivo.

Additional disadvantages in grounded theory include a researcher’s own biases and assumptions which may impact their data analysis and the quality of their data – whether it’s low quality or simply incomplete.

How to Use NVivo for Grounded Theory

If you’re ready to start using grounded theory, using tools like NVivo can help!

With NVivo, you can analyze interviews (and occasionally survey) data by visually exploring datasets with the Detail View feature. This ability lets you limit the amount of data you’re viewing and filter to help identify patterns in your data.

Additionally, NVivo can help with transcribing, making connections between themes and participants, and keeping your interview data organized. Learn more about how to use NVivo for interview data in Thematic Analysis of Interview Data: 6 Ways NVivo Can Help .

Learn more about how to use NVivo for grounded theory in this paper Using NVivo to Facilitate the Development of a Grounded Theory Project: An Account of a Worked Example and the video below.

Learn more about how to use NVivo for grounded theory >>

Start transforming your qualitative research by requesting a free demo of NVivo today!

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Grounded Theory

• First Online: 29 September 2022

Cite this chapter

• Robert E. White   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8045-164X 3 &
• Karyn Cooper 4  

4 Citations

Grounded theory may perhaps be one of the most widely known methodologies used to conduct qualitative research in the social sciences and beyond. Introduced by sociologists Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), grounded theory suggests that procedures once thought to be unacceptable with regards to traditional qualitative research have become perfectly acceptable, if not desirable and required. The methodology also provides justification for regarding qualitative research as a legitimate and rigorous form of inquiry (DePoy & Gitlin, 2016).

GT is multivariate. It happens sequentially, subsequently, simultaneously, serendipitously, and scheduled. Barney Glaser ( 1998 )

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Faculty of Education, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, NS, Canada

Robert E. White

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Negotiating emotional order: a grounded theory of breast cancer survivors

Jennifer A. Klimek Yingling

Klimek Yingling, J. A. (2018). Negotiating emotional order: A grounded theory of breast cancer survivors. Grounded Theory Review: An International Journal 17 (1), 12-27.

In this article, classic grounded theory captures the processes of 12 women who had completed initial treatment for breast cancer. The qualitative data analysis reveals the basic social process of negotiating emotional order that describe how breast cancer survivors perceive their illness and decide to take action. From the data, five stages of the process of negotiating emotional order emerge: 1) Losing Life Order, 2) Assisted Life Order, 3) Transforming 4) Accepting, and 5) Creating Emotional Order. This study may help healthcare providers who care for breast cancer survivors understand the depth of perpetual emotional impact that breast cancer survivors endure. This study will potentially serve as a path for future research and aid in the understanding of the psychological impact that breast cancer has upon survivors.

Keywords : breast cancer, survivor, chemotherapy, emotional order

What Sparked This Research

I cared for a patient who I had gotten to know as her child often visited the emergency department due to hemophilia. She was a pleasure to work with, strong, level headed, and upbeat. On this particular day she was the patient. Her complaint was simple: a cough and she clearly wasn’t herself emotionally. I was surprised to discover, when I took her past medical history, that she was a breast cancer survivor. After I discussed her chest x-ray results I sensed she was still upset and filled with uncertainty. Then the lightbulb went on. I asked her directly if she was concerned if the cancer was recurring. She said yes and her tears flowed. I do believe if I had not dug a little deeper into her emotional state she would have left the emergency department with much of the same emotional duress that she initially had. This interaction sparked my research as it was clear that breast cancer survivors endure a process after treatment ends. For these survivors the treatment is over but the emotional aspect of breast cancer is not. It also became evident to me that health care providers need to know more about this process on order to be able to treat patients holistically.

Negotiating Emotional Order: A Grounded Theory of Breast Cancer Survivors

Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer found in women worldwide (American Cancer Society [ACS], 2016; Ferlay et al., 2104). In the United States, it is estimated that 3.5 million women have been diagnosed with breast cancer; 245,000 will be newly diagnosed; and, approximately 40,000 women will succumb to breast cancer annually (ACS, 2016; Breastcancer.org, 2016). Early detection and improved treatment is credited to the rising population of women who are breast cancer survivors (Howlader et al., 2015; McCloskey, Lee, & Steinburg, 2011). Concerns about the psychosocial ramifications of chronic illness have a long history. The Institute of Medicine (2009), American Cancer Society (2015), and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (2015) resonate concern about psychosocial hindrances regarding cancer patients, citing them as a critical area needing improvement within the nation’s health care system.

The literature suggests breast cancer survivors endure psychological stressors after the completion of treatment including the following: loneliness (Marroquin, Czamanski-Cohen, Weihs, & Stanton, 2016; Rosedale, 2009), anxiety and depression (Walker, Szanton, & Wenzel, 2015), uncertainty (Dawson, Madsen, & Dains, 2016; Mishel et al., 2005), and fear of recurrence (McGinty, Small, Laronga, & Jacobsen, 2016). The phenomenon of breast cancer survivorship has been identified with qualitative methods, yet is lacking explanatory theory (Allen, Savadatti & Levy, 2009; Pelusi, 1997). Qualitative analysis uses inductive rather than deductive investigation of a clinical phenomenon for capturing themes and patterns within subjective perceptions to generate an interpretive account to inform clinical understanding. Inductive methods are used by the researchers to discover and generate theory (Artinian, Giske, & Cone, 2009; Glaser, 2008). Therefore, grounded theory was chosen to study the process of survivorship in women who have completed treatment for breast cancer.

A Glaserian grounded theory design was chosen to explore the process of transition survivorship in women who have completed treatment for breast cancer. Grounded theory allows the researcher to explore a phenomenon and build theory from concepts going through processes and transitions (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Glaser, 2008). The ACS defines cancer survivor as “anyone with a history of cancer, from the time of diagnosis through the remainder of their life” (ACS, 2016, p. 3). This definition was used for inclusion criteria for this project. Prior to commencement of the research, approval from the university’s institutional review board was secured. A purposive sample was sought and participants were self-identified breast cancer survivors in a suburban community in Northeast United States. A presentation was made at a local breast cancer survivorship group. Flyers were posted in community centers, libraries, and public places including areas that reach numerous individuals. Based on these recruitment efforts, 12 women were interviewed during a four-month period.

Data Collection

All participants received written and verbal information about the study and gave informed consent. Data were collected by completing the following: a demographic data form, approximately one-hour individual in-depth interviews, observational notes, and field notes. All of the data was handled in a confidential manner. Each interview session lasted approximately one hour in length. Broad open-ended questions were used to stimulate discussion of thoughts and feelings about extended survivorship. Focused questions and prompts were used to elicit more specific information from participants about their actions to attain and maintain psychosocial health after the completion of breast cancer treatment. The focus questions also elicited information about processes used to modify and maneuver through adversities after completion of treatment. Each participant was asked to describe situations when she knew something had changed in her health and psychosocial status after the completion of treatment for breast cancer. Participants were asked to answer the questions until they felt they had no information to add to the topic.

Data Analysis

Data analysis took a Glaserian approach in which data collection, analysis, and memoing were ongoing and concurrent throughout the research. Each interview was digitally taped and transcribed. Atlas.ti software was used as a depository to code, store, and memo during analysis. Data was coded line by line to fracture the data into nouns formed from a verb or gerund. The interviews were re-coded on three different occasions. After the initial interview was coded, the second interview was coded in a similar fashion and the data were examined for common constructs that were clustered. Subsequent interviews were open-coded and compared with ideas and relationships described in the researcher’s memos. As the categories unfolded, some categories were re-coded or combined with other categories. At the conclusion of the last interview, all codes were sorted to certify fit. Once a core variable or category was identified, coding became selective. The researcher continued the interviews and coding until saturation of the core variable was achieved. On saturation, theoretical coding was used to intersect categories within the data. Exploration of the literature for substantive codes that were significant was conducted each day. Extensive memo taking was used via manual notes and also as freehand drawn visuals created by the researcher to capture the researcher’s mind set.

Trustworthiness

For the purpose of this paper, a conglomerate of trustworthiness criteria grounded from the recommendations of Glaser (1978, 1998, 2001) was employed. The researcher who conducted this study had scant exposure to extended breast cancer survivors in her personal and professional realm. Techniques to establish credibility included prolonged engagement and peer debriefing. Theoretical sampling and constant comparison took place when data, analytic categories, interpretations, and conclusions were discussed and tested with study participants throughout the interview process. Prolonged engagement developed rapport and participant trust. To address transferability, the following groups of data were included in an audit trail: 1) raw data, 2) data reduction and analysis notes, data reconstruction and synthesis products, 3) process notes, 4) materials related to intentions and dispositions, and 5) preliminary development information. The researcher kept a reflexive journal to record methodological decisions and the rationale for the decisions, the planning and management of the study, and reflection upon the researcher’s own principles, feelings, and interests. Lastly, external audits were conducted by several researchers not involved with the research process on several occasions.

The Theory of Negotiating Emotional Order

The main concern of the women is the struggle for emotional order. The meaning inherent in the basic social process of Negotiating Emotional Order is that women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer strive for emotional order by negotiating control of the negative feeling of threats to their mortality and to live their daily lives. The process described in the theory of Negotiating Emotional Order changes as the situation of the breast cancer survivors changes. As time passes, the women move from discovering an abnormality to a time after treatment ends. This process is dynamic and perpetual in nature because the threat of cancer recurrence remains until the end of the breast cancer survivor’s life. For some women, negotiating emotional order is achieved even when the cancer recurs or metastasizes.

The participants’ actions and decisions illuminate the perpetual struggle to negotiate emotional order. For some, order is compartmentalizing negative thoughts and emotions that they could not control. For others, they accept the fact that they cannot control cancer but project order onto other aspects of their lives. The struggle for emotional order is present from the time the survivor found the abnormality into long-term survivorship and at times is cyclic. Five stages of the process of negotiating emotional order emerges from the data: 1) Losing Life Order, 2) Assisted Life Order, 3) Transforming, 4) Accepting, and 5) Creating Emotional Order.

Losing Life Order

During this time period, the realization of the threat of breast cancer disrupts emotional order with intense fear and uncertainty of the future. The breast cancer survivor often makes decisions and acts on her instincts to placate the immediacy that she feels prior to starting treatment, often seeks information from the Internet, popular literature, media and from others who have experienced breast cancer. Unfortunately, their need for immediacy is often not met by the health care community, so they take matters into their own hands and act.

Many of the participants voice that this time period is difficult, as they have multifaceted family roles as wives, mothers, and children of parents of their own causing additional emotional turmoil. The participants continue or attempt to continue with their family roles by working, caring for children, and maintaining their households. The breast cancer survivors voice that they don’t have time to let cancer get in the way emotionally as they are too busy with family and work responsibilities. The participants speak of emotional duress when they see their families react to their illness and chose to protect their families by concealing their emotions. One participant talked about why she concealed her emotions: “The emotional impact it had on my family was horrible . . . I felt like I had to be strong for them . . . I would not show any emotions about being sick.”

Losing order encompasses two properties of disorder: losing emotional order and losing physical order. Upon discovering an abnormality, and then confirming breast cancer, the breast cancer survivors report loss of control of their bodies, which causes emotional duress. This stage marked the survivors’ first sense that cancer cannot be controlled. Loss of emotional order is represented by feelings of sadness, anger, immediacy, loneliness, fear, and uncertainty. This stage is hallmarked by emotional chaos and decision making. Approaches the women use in this stage are: taking matters into own hands and concealing to maintain family order.

Assisted Life Order

Surprisingly, although treatment is a physically draining endeavor, the breast cancer survivors voice that it is a time of respite when they focus on physical well-being rather than the emotional disruption that is occurring. During this phase, the women are often consumed with treatments of surgery, chemotherapy, and/or radiation. The participants state they feel proactive and protected while under the frequent care of health care providers. This participant’s narrative exemplifies the feeling of being assisted emotionally and physically by health care providers: “While you’re getting chemotherapy, you think you’re doing something to kill off any additional cancer that the surgery didn’t get. You have certain protection.”

The breast cancer survivors verbalize feeling lonely, despite having much social and family support, and purposely seek out other women who endured breast cancer for emotional support. Breast cancer survivors seek emotional support from formal and informal support persons. The participants also discuss a phenomenon where other breast cancer survivors would approach them after hearing about their diagnosis and come to their assistance to provide support. The importance of this camaraderie is evident in this narrative: “I didn’t know people that have been through this…people came out of the woodwork. People that I had known that I didn’t know that had cancer who shared their stories with me.” Some of the breast cancer survivors express the need to have a connection with someone who has experienced breast cancer. Some women seek formal support groups for this need and continue to use them after treatment is completed.

The second stage of negotiating emotional order is assisted life order that occurs when the breast cancer survivor enters treatment and focuses all of her energy into physical well-being. At the same time, survivors entrust their life order into the hands of health care providers and rely on social support to carry them through the time that they are in treatment. During this time, the breast cancer survivor keeps physically and emotionally occupied with the routine of appointments and treatment. During this time, the women feel treatment is a sanctuary and they express that during this time they feel lonely in their current experience. During the second period, they engage with others with formal training or personal experience with breast cancer to establish emotional order.

Transforming

At this stage of the process, the breast cancer survivors report a cutting point or a crossroads and make a change in thought process. They are autonomously responsible for their physical and emotional well-being. This autonomy is a sharp contrast to their behavior while in treatment, where they live day to day and do not think about the future. Once treatments end, survivors must take the wheel and navigate into their life and the future. It does appear that this cutting point is an emotionally charged timeframe: the temporary sanctuary of treatment ends and many survivors feel the need to take subjective responsibility of their emotional order. The survivors speak about the need to reach inward to claim emotional order to live their lives beyond breast cancer.

During this stage, the threat changes from the fear of the diagnosis of cancer to the fear of cancer. The fear of cancer can be recurrence of breast cancer, occurrence of a new cancer, and/or cancer metastasis. The process of beginning to move on from the emotional effects of the diagnosis of breast cancer begins shortly after the end of treatment. Fear is initially intense then becomes manageable over time for many. Several women note the recurrent fear abates somewhat after the first year and even more after five years. The fear of recurrence also can return many years after the completion of treatment. This dread is especially true if the breast cancer survivor discovers new symptoms or abnormalities that lead her to believe the cancer has returned. Often waiting for the results of diagnostics causes extreme anxiety and fear of recurrence.

The interviewed participants ranged from three months to twenty-four years post treatment. Despite the variation of time since the ending of treatment, all of the participants discussed levels of fear of recurrence. Often, the fear of recurrence affects their daily lives initially until they set cancer apart from living their present life. Several of the participants state it is not so much an inherent process rather than an active decision to take control of their feelings of fear and move onward. In this stage, the turning point is the active decision to leave breast cancer in the past and focus on the present and future. Another participant, who is thirteen years post treatment, discussed this decision: “I told myself, I have to make a move here. You can curl up in a ball and die or I can move on. I started moving on.”

When the breast cancer survivors leave treatment, they are at a crossroad in which feelings of loss and confusion are produced. After adjuvant treatment ends, the breast cancer survivors must remap their lives and begin to strive for a new normalcy in their lives. The threat at this stage changes from the diagnosis of cancer and is replaced with the fear of recurrence. The breast cancer survivors often revisit their own mortality during this time and these feelings can cause loss of emotional order. During this time the breast cancer survivor transforms, remapping their life course and also moving on from fear.

Uncertainty of the future also causes emotional distress for breast cancer survivors. The reality that none can control their own mortality, or cancer, is an aspect of the emotional trajectory that the breast cancer survivors struggle with initially. Once breast cancer survivors make this realization, they can then subjectively gain order of their emotions. This action is autonomous as no one else but the breast cancer survivor can complete this task. One participant spoke about this decision: “There are things that I can change and there are things that I am powerless over. It’s distinguishing and I do have control over what I’m thinking.”

Although the breast cancer survivor attempts to control her emotions, she often will come to the realization that she can keep her emotions in order rather than control them so that she can move on in her life and get serenity with the past diagnosis of breast cancer. Several of the participants state the turning point occurs when they realize they cannot control cancer or their feelings, and thus accept order versus control. As the threat of recurrence is no longer an issue, they accept their mortality and are living in the present day. A participant reflection on this concept: “We’ll all go some day. It’s just my time might come sooner than expected. A part of life.”

Feelings of emotional loss of control can be triggered by reminders after treatment ends. Reminders include physical reminders, body image reminders, diagnostics, and society cancer awareness. Although gaining realization of their own mortality, living with reminders forces the breast cancer survivors to cope on a daily basis with the fear of recurrence as they are reminded by physical and cognitive aftermath of breast cancer. Additionally, diagnostics and health care visits can elicit feelings of fear. Breast cancer survivors also voice that breast cancer or cancer awareness activities in the community and media also trigger feelings of fear. The impact of reminders is showcased by one participant’s remarks: “I worry about it all the time. Every ache and pain I have. When my bones hurt I wonder if it is bone cancer. Every time I have to have a mammogram, I pray it’s not there.”

Creating Emotional Order

Inherently, human beings have emotions. One of these emotions is fear in response to a threat. As the threat of cancer recurrence has a perpetual quality in women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, the emotional aspect of cancer recurrence is long-standing. Since she cannot fully control her emotions, the breast cancer survivor will compartmentalize negative feelings of uncertainty and fear to achieve emotional order. To protect themselves emotionally, several of the participants speak about triaging these emotions to the back of their heads and putting these feelings away. One participant illustrates this behavior: “It’s probably because I pushed it to the back of my head because I don’t want to deal with those emotions.”

Once the breast cancer survivor accepts the fact that there are aspects of her life she can control and there are aspects over which she has no power, she will begin to create emotional order. Having control over actions and or parts of her life allows the breast cancer survivor to have emotional order. During times of emotional distress, they also increase their attempts to distract themselves from their emotions. This increase in activity temporarily increases with times of stress. Often, after the breast cancer survivor feels well, she redefines the actions in which she participates. Survivors express themselves by participating in activities that they enjoy or want to experience but did not have the courage to do so prior to diagnosis. Breast cancer survivors also talk about controlling their family roles and home environment. The breast cancer survivor might demonstrate control by creating a household routine or enumerating familial activities. Distracting self with other aspects of life also is a way that breast cancer survivors create emotional order. By immersing themselves back into their daily routines of work, marital, household, and family roles, survivors limit the amount of time they have available to think about the fear of recurrence, which is similar to using activity to occupy time during the assisted life order stage.

Social comparison through self-evaluations is another way that these participants achieve emotional order. Breast cancer survivors use social comparison as a method to create emotional order by viewing their experience as better than others who experienced poor outcomes. As a defense mechanism, if the breast cancer survivor views her experience as positive then she reaffirms she is a survivor. Social comparison is evident almost unanimously in the data. Participants speak often of reflecting on the experience they endured and feel lucky. While exploring this code the researcher asked the participants what they meant by luck or being lucky. Consistently the participants talk about luck as comparing outcomes as better or worse. For example, when asked what she meant by having better luck, a participant replied: “Well I was thinking someone maybe had the same surgery as me, did better than me.” Here is an example of a breast cancer survivor socially comparing her experience as worse than another person’s experience.

In addition to evaluating the actual treatment outcomes and evaluating the way that they physically dealt with treatment, the breast cancer survivors also evaluate the entire experience of breast cancer by reflection. The ability to reflect onto the past experience to find benefits and assign positive outcomes related to the cancer allow the survivor to make sense of the experience and create emotional order. In many ways, the survivors feel everything that they endured was worth what they became. Many reflect back and feel they gained knowledge of self-meaning knowing their bodies and emotions and realized they have abilities to endure adversity that they did not know before the experience of breast cancer. The breast cancer survivors reflect back in awe of the emotional stamina that they had during adversity and were proud of their accomplishments. One participant states: “It is amazing. Yeah if someone had told me I could write a book, become a massage therapist and learn the body the way I have. I would have said no way.”

“I feel like I know these people. You have been through what they have been through.” This participant’s narrative sums up the transparent common bond the participants feel with other cancer survivors. To create emotional order, the breast cancer survivors help others as a way to help themselves emotionally. Planned helpfulness allows the breast cancer survivor to create emotional order by gaining satisfaction through assisting others. Often breast cancer survivors employ ambiguousness until they are ready to disclose their survivorship status. This opacity allows them to experience empowerment and also allows them life choice—a common theme throughout the interviews. Breast cancer survivors plan and decide how they would help others; many are grateful for the acquaintance disclosure and guidance they receive early in their disease trajectory and want to pay forward some type of comfort to others who are enduring cancer.

Once survivors accept the fact that they cannot control their mortality and cancer, the breast cancer survivor creates social order to protect herself emotionally. Breast cancer survivors are acutely aware that their actions do not guarantee that cancer will not return, but in this stage they want to maintain a status of being physically and emotionally healthy. One participant communicates: “What work do I need to do. I am a survivor and want to be a survivor for a long time.” Although reminders often trigger fear, the survivors often use methods to create emotional order, to find balance and not allow feelings of fear to overcome them. Breast cancer survivors protect themselves by controlling their actions, compartmentalizing negative feelings, using social comparison and/or engaging in planned helpfulness.

Creating Emotional Order allows breast cancer survivors to transcend the fear of recurrence by controlling their actions, compartmentalizing negative feelings, and using social comparison and planned helpfulness. Although they cannot control their emotions or control cancer, they can control the way they react to emotions and take control of their life actions. Many of the participants shelve their negative emotions in order not to let the psychological aspect of breast cancer interfere in their daily lives. The participants show evidence that the survivors can regress between stages of this theory, but after their initial passage through the stages progress forward quickly and resiliently.

Limitations

There are several limitations in this research. First, the researcher attempted to recruit a variety of participants from diverse social and demographic backgrounds through flyers posted in public places. Despite this attempt to obtain a diverse population, all the participants are White and hold high school education or equivalency and most of the sample had three or more years of college education. Most of the participants are married or partnered. Economic and insurance status information is not included in the demographic data. Expanding the demographic sample might have allowed modifiability of the theory to explore additional relationships between these variables and the process of survivorship.

Finally, grounded theory analyses are population specific. This research represents the primary step in theory development. The aim of grounded theory construction is to hone and develop a theory in the attempt to produce formal theory. Testing the applicability of this theory may be appropriate in other populations who face severe illnesses, for example individuals as they face the aging process, individuals who are facing a terminal illness, veterans returning from war diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, men facing prostate cancer, and/or women facing infertility.

The aim of this study is to contribute to the knowledge of breast cancer survivorship. This research contributes to the literature as a lack of holistic research exists on the process of extended survivorship that involves the fragments of the process of survivorship. Breast cancer is a significant and prominent healthcare challenge for many women in the United States. Negotiating emotional order is identified as the core category allowing women to survive emotionally after completing treatment for breast cancer. Five stages were identified including the following: Losing Life Order, Assisted Life Order, Transforming, Accepting, and Creating Emotional Order. The grounded theory of negotiating order integrates and highlights the importance of recognizing emotional health in breast cancer survivors.

This research challenges a staple in cancer survivorship literature that is reported by Mullan (1985) in several ways. First, in the current study, breast cancer survivors described the process of survivorship beginning before diagnosis with the discovery of an abnormality. This variation in the genesis of process of survivorship is different from Mullan’s (1985) model in which the process of survivorship is said to begin with diagnosis. Second, a new stage that represented transitional survivorship or Stage III: Transforming is described in the current study as the period immediately following the completion of treatment. Third, Mullan (1985) described extended survivorship as ending once the survivor enters remission. Although most breast cancer survivors interviewed for this study entered remission, several experienced recurrences or metastatic breast cancer so Mullan’s model excluded the process that these individuals endured.

Lastly, in this study extended survivorship appeared to be a continuous state rather than a conduit to permanent survivorship as Mullan (1985) described in his model. Mullan (1985) stated permanent cancer survivorship begins once the person is considered cancer free and can successfully return to their normal physical and emotional abilities prior to the cancer diagnosis. The survivors in this study describe extended survivorship to have a perpetual nature rather than being permanently cured physically or emotionally. They also challenge the fact they would return to “normal.” One of the participants states, “It was a rough road. Trying to figure out who I was, where I belong. Because they say your life goes back to normal, there is no normalcy. I don’t feel I am normal today.” This idea is significant as many breast cancer survivors may feel the need to feel “normal” due to the extensive publication of Mullan’s (1985) model. The use of Mullan’s (1985) model by many credible cancer authorities may prove to be confusing and frustrating to breast cancer survivors who lack the feeling of normalcy after treatment is completed and into extended survivorship.

The theory of Negotiating Emotional Order supports several existing theories that describe how individuals handle severe illnesses beyond cancer. This work complements several authors who described survivorship beyond the biomedical model that psychosocial and environmental factors influence (Collins, 1995; Festinger, 1954; Folkman & Greer, 2000; Taylor, 1983; Walker, Jackson, & Littlejohn, 2004).

The construct of control can be found in the literature in multiple patient populations including breast cancer (Warren, 2010), cardiac disease (Svansdotti et al., 2012), patients with obsessive compulsive disorder (Kang, Namkoong, Yoo, Jhung, & Kim, 2012), diabetes (Hughes, Berg, & Wiebe, 2012), and sexual assault (Frazier, Morlensen, & Steward, 2005). In this study, loss of emotional control is important, as it serves as a catalyst shaping the decisions and actions of the participants. Additionally, controlling actions were used later by the participants as a means to cope, thus creating emotional order. This theme is analogous with Folkman’s (1984) description of control as a dynamic coping mechanism with shifting appraisal as result of a stressful encounter or environment.

Benefit finding and planned helpfulness that are reported are consistent with Taylor’s (1983) proposed theory of cognitive adaptation in response to threatening events as both are displays of a search for meaning in the experience and attempts of mastery to restore self-esteem. It may also be noted that Taylor (1983) linked an individual’s sense of control to positive cognitive adaptation. Lastly, social comparison is evident in this group. This observation echoes Festinger’s (1954) work hypothesizing that social comparison is done to promote self-normalcy. Social comparison in this population is a mechanism to negotiate emotional order by improving the survivors’ positive perception of their situation and is consistent with the work Collins (1995) reported.

Implications for Practice

This research affords a glimpse into the experience of survivorship from the perspective of women who have completed treatment for breast cancer and how they survived emotionally from the detection of an abnormality into extended survivorship. This work aids in the development of a broad understanding of the processes that individuals endure when faced with a serious health status alteration. This information might aid health care providers to understand the immediacy that breast cancer survivors experience during the disease trajectory and the concept that the fear of recurrence can last perpetually and be an issue that is important to survivors until the end of their lives.

A lesson that can be taken away from this work is that women are continuously attempting to create emotional order and this clearly indicates they need support to continue well after treatment ends. In terms of theory, the identification of the process used by breast cancer survivors to negotiate emotional order may be helpful for health care providers who care for, educate, and design nursing interventions for this population. This study of survivorship after breast cancer establishes the beginning process of generating a formal grounded theory on survivorship that could, through further theoretical sampling, be extended beyond this patient population. Building on existing theory, this qualitative data analysis may help explain the mechanisms used by populations who have experienced a life-threatening illness personally or while supporting a loved one.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the breast cancer survivors who shared their personal survivorship journey for this research. I also thank Dr. Elise Lev, Dr. Karen D’Alonzo, Dr. Claudia Beckman, Dr. Louise Dean Kelly and Naomi Tobes for their encouragement and invaluable contributions to this work.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declares no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

This research is supported by the Rita C. Koph Memorial Research Award generously given by the Foundation of New York State Nurses, Cathryne A. Welch Center for Nursing Research

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White, R.E., Cooper, K. (2022). Grounded Theory. In: Qualitative Research in the Post-Modern Era. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85124-8_9

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Student Notebook

Developing theory with the grounded-theory approach and thematic analysis.

• Experimental Psychology
• Statistical Analysis
• Stereotypes

Grounded theory is an approach by which theory is extended from qualitative analysis (Charmaz, 1990; Walsh, 2014). It began nearly 5 decades ago (Glaser & Straus, 1967) and has since developed and diversified (Heath & Cowley, 2004). This article outlines a process of thematic analysis directed by the grounded-theory approach and discusses the conditions under which this process is most suitable, using examples from my work with a research team on my master’s thesis about gender-role conceptions among Latinas (Heydarian, 2016).

The use of thematic analysis driven by grounded theory is particularly informative for this area of cultural research. The prominent literature of Latina gender studies in the social sciences promotes a stereotypical image of Latinas as submissive and dependent; the grounded-theory approach to thematic analysis allowed me to explore the detail and nuances of how Latina women themselves describe the Latina experience. From my own analyses, I found that Latinas view the experience of being a woman in Latina culture as a complex identity beyond stereotypes. The study participants noted that their identity changes and evolves in different situations and across the lifespan. These findings have implications for how Latinas are viewed and treated in social-science research, setting the stage for future directions in sociocultural and clinical studies.

Grounded Theory in Data Collection

Grounded theory is an approach whereby the researcher refers back to the literature relevant to the research topic and to qualitative observations throughout data collection and analysis. Review of the literature and qualitative data can help shape subsequent data collection and analysis according to new perspectives that arise from reference to previous research and participants’ observations. During the data-collection stage, the researcher may realize previously unanticipated characteristics of the construct by analyzing participants’ responses and consequently refine subsequent data collection.

Grounded Theory in Thematic Analysis

The grounded-theory approach also may be applied to the data-analysis stage of a study. This process involves the critical review of responses to determine appropriate coding and the formation of themes from those codes. Researchers can conduct thematic analyses on the transcriptions of participants’ responses to interview questions, other dialogue, or responses to open-ended questions (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Pope & Mays, 1995). I examined responses to the question “What it is like to be ‘feminine’ and ‘motherly?’” from a semistructured interview.

Preparing and Revising the Codebook

The researcher first develops a preliminary codebook — a predetermined set of constructs and their associated definitions and characteristics. (This codebook will be refined throughout analysis.) This is determined a priori from the existing literature, the proposed research questions, and consultations with experts familiar with the constructs of interest. For example, one construct that emerged in my study of Latinas’ perspectives of gender roles was familismo — prioritizing, providing for, and taking care of the family (Castillo, Perez, Castillo, & Ghosheh, 2010; Guzmán, 2011; Heydarian, 2016; Lugo-Steidel & Contreras, 2003). Codes initially assigned to one theme may be moved to another theme during later stages of the analysis.

The researcher then will need to select certain themes to report. This selection is based on what the researcher determines to be the smallest-sized theme of interest for answering the research question (i.e., what is the smallest number of people who gave a response that fits within that theme?) and the practices of the field. The researcher also may choose to highlight themes of particular theoretical interest.

During this final stage of coding, subthemes may be identified. These may emerge when several participants give similar detailed descriptions of a characteristic of the theme. For example, a subtheme of the theme familismo may include taking care of children (Heydarian, 2016).

The Coding Process

The coding process entails reading through the data and list of response codes, referring back to the original interview transcriptions, and reassigning response codes to different themes that best represent them. Ideally, the researcher should analyze the data with a team of two or more research assistants familiar with the codebook and coding procedures.

After response codes are identified, researchers can sort them into themes. Both theory-driven (deductive) and data-driven (inductive) stages of analysis can be used to generate themes from the response codes. The researcher and research assistants independently examine the response-code data for theory-driven themes according to the codebook, then meet to resolve coding discrepancies and identify quotes that did not fit within the theory-driven themes. Then the members of the research team independently can examine the response codes that did not fit within the predetermined deductive themes and identify new, inductively derived themes. It is important for the raters to carry out this stage independently so that their interpretations of the data are not influenced by others. The team constructs new themes that are not described by previous literature, with corresponding definitions to capture the prevalent characteristics described by the participants. For example, one previously unidentified construct associated with marianismo — the constellation of stereotypes associated with women in Latina culture — is empowerment (Heydarian, 2016). Our research team identified an internal empowerment theme and an external empowerment theme. Internal empowerment refers to the sense of a strong identity and self-confidence; external empowerment refers to the desire and self-efficacy to make a positive change in one’s own life and in the community.

The research team will meet again following the second stage of independent coding to consult on the quotes that were not assigned to either the deductive theme or the inductive theme. After the discussion of possible inductive themes, the primary researcher reviews all of the coding and arrives upon a final codebook.

Limitations and Strengths

The grounded-theory approach to qualitative data analysis is heavily directed by the primary researcher. This element of the approach can introduce bias into the analysis. The primary researcher must carefully consider the perspectives of the research-team members and the research participants by revisiting the data several times when revising the codebook. The research team that I worked with for the study on gender-role perspectives of Latinas contributed greatly to shaping the codebook and findings of the study, and ultimately helped contribute to the field.

The grounded-theory approach is useful when the area of study is new. It also is helpful for identifying details of constructs. In addition to themes and subthemes related to familismo and empowerment, we discovered themes capturing perspectives about beauty, interpersonal manners, and human qualities (e.g., being loving and caring). When the researcher carefully considers other perspectives and is well versed in the existing literature related to the research topic, the analysis can make a great contribution to shaping theory. œ

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About the Author

Nazanin Mina Heydarian is a doctoral candidate in the University of Texas at El Paso’s Health Psychology program. Her research interests include medical decision-making and prejudice as well as attitudes and attributions about people with disabilities and chronic medical conditions.

Careers Up Close: Joel Anderson on Gender and Sexual Prejudices, the Freedoms of Academic Research, and the Importance of Collaboration

Joel Anderson, a senior research fellow at both Australian Catholic University and La Trobe University, researches group processes, with a specific interest on prejudice, stigma, and stereotypes.

Experimental Methods Are Not Neutral Tools

Ana Sofia Morais and Ralph Hertwig explain how experimental psychologists have painted too negative a picture of human rationality, and how their pessimism is rooted in a seemingly mundane detail: methodological choices. 

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"Let the Fear Go and Trust the Process"—Experiencing Grounded Theory Over a Lifetime. Odis E. Simmons in Conversation With Astrid Gynnild

Odis simmons.

• Astrid Gynnild University of Bergen https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9502-1044

Odis SIMMONS was among the first students who learned grounded theory method (GTM) directly from the co-founders GLASER and STRAUSS. Except for GLASER himself, SIMMONS is probably the grounded theorist who has taught the method to most students globally. In this interview SIMMONS provides key insights into learning, doing, teaching, and applying classic grounded theory (GT) as a general research method. With his double background as a therapist and a teacher in higher education, SIMMONS elaborates on fears that students might have during the research process and how they are overcome. He explains the ideas behind his own approaches to grounded action and grounded therapy , which for a long time resided in the GTM background but are gradually getting more widespread. In the interview, he also brings new knowledge on the diverging perspectives of GLASER and STRAUSS which, according to him, existed from the beginning. He argues, in an including manner, why classic GTM and constructivist GTM should be considered two different methods and urges educators to openly discuss the differences.

Author Biographies

Odis E. SIMMONS enrolled at the University of California, San Francisco in 1970, and became an early student of both GLASER and STRAUSS after their seminal work "The Discovery of Grounded Theory" (1967) was published. SIMMONS got his PhD in sociology at the University of California, San Francisco in 1974. He has taught classic GTM to hundreds of students since he first started in 1971. His first academic position was at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma. He then went to Yale University in Connecticut, where he directed the self-care program in the Medical School. From there he and his wife decided to take the plunge and move to the Northwest. After 14 years as a therapist, SIMMONS went on to a faculty position at Fielding Graduate University, where he developed his own program in classic GTM. He held the position at Fielding for 16 years until he formally retired in 2014. Following up on his teaching career, SIMMONS has written "Experiencing Grounded Theory: A Comprehensive Guide to Learning, Doing, Mentoring, Teaching, and Applying Grounded Theory," which was published in 2022. SIMMONS was a close friend of Barney G. GLASER until GLASER died in 2022, and he is a fellow of the Grounded Theory Institute.

Astrid Gynnild, University of Bergen

Astrid GYNNILD is a professor of media studies at the University of Bergen, Norway. She attended her first troubleshooting seminar with Barney GLASER in London in 2004. She got her PhD from the University of Bergen in 2006 with a grounded theory on creative processes of news professionals, with GLASER as external examiner. GYNNILD was a participant observer at more than a dozen of GLASER's troubleshooting seminars in Europe and in the USA 2004-2017. She was a visiting research scholar at the University of California, Berkeley 2011-2012, while also working closely with GLASER. She served as an editor of the non-profit journal Grounded Theory Review ( GTR ) 2012-2018 and turned the GTR into an open-access journal. GYNNILD co-authored "Grounded Theory: The Philosophy, Method and Work of Barney Glaser" with Vivian B. MARTIN (2012). She has published several classic grounded theories in both English and Norwegian. She is a reviewer in the GTR and a fellow of the Grounded Theory Institute.

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Charmaz, Kathy & Keller, Reiner (2016). A personal journey with grounded theory methodology. Kathy Charmaz in conversation with Reiner Keller. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 17(1), Art. 16, https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-17.1.2541 [Accessed: April 10, 2024].

Glaser, Barney G. (1978). Theoretical sensitivity: Advances in the methodology of grounded theory. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press.

Glaser, Barney G. (1992). Basics of grounded theory analysis: Emergence vs. forcing. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press.

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Glaser, Barney G. (2002). Constructivist grounded theory?. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 3(3), Art. 12, https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-3.3.825 [Accessed: April 10, 2024].

Glaser, Barney G. (2005). The grounded theory perspective III: Theoretical coding. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press.

Glaser, Barney G. (2014). Choosing grounded theory. Grounded Theory Review, 13(2), 3-19, https://groundedtheoryreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/CHOOSING-GROUNDED-THEORY-2014.pdf [Accessed: April 7, 2024].

Glaser, Barney G. with the assistance of Judith Holton (2004). Remodeling grounded theory. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 5(2), Art. 4, https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-5.2.607 [Accessed: April 21, 2024].

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Gynnild, Astrid (2012a). Atmosphering for conceptual discovery. In Vivian B. Martin & Astrid Gynnild (Eds.), Grounded theory: The philosophy, method, and work of Barney Glaser (pp.31-51). Boca Raton, FL: BrownWalker Press.

Gynnild, Astrid (2012b). Living the ideas. A biographical interview with Barney Glaser. In Vivian B. Martin & Astrid Gynnild (Eds.), Grounded theory: The philosophy, method, and work of Barney Glaser (pp.237-255). Boca Raton, FL: BrownWalker Press.

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McCallin, Antoinette; Nathaniel, Alvita & Andrews, Tom (2011). Learning methodology minus mentorship. In Vivian B. Martin & Astrid Gynnild (Eds.), Grounded theory: The philosophy, method, and work of Barney Glaser (pp.237-255). Boca Raton, FL: BrownWalker Press.

Olson, Mitch M. (2008). Using grounded action methodology for student intervention—Driven succeeding: A grounded action study in adult education. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 9(1), Art. 9, https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-9.1.340 [Accessed: April 10, 2024].

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Simmons, Odis (2012). Why classic grounded theory. In Vivian B. Martin & Astrid Gynnild (Eds.), Grounded theory: The philosophy, method, and work of Barney Glaser (pp.15-31). Boca Raton, FL: BrownWalker Press.

Simmons, Odis (2022). Experiencing grounded theory: A comprehensive guide to learning, doing, mentoring, teaching, and applying grounded theory. Boca Raton, FL: BrownWalker Press.

Simmons, Odis E., & Gregory, Tony. A. (2003). Grounded action: Achieving optimal and sustainable change. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 4(3), Art. 27, https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-4.3.677 [Accessed: April 10, 2024].

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CRO Guide   >  Chapter 3.1

Qualitative Research: Definition, Methodology, Limitation & Examples

Qualitative research is a method focused on understanding human behavior and experiences through non-numerical data. Examples of qualitative research include:

• One-on-one interviews,
• Focus groups, Ethnographic research,
• Case studies,
• Record keeping,
• Qualitative observations

In this article, we’ll provide tips and tricks on how to use qualitative research to better understand your audience through real world examples and improve your ROI. We’ll also learn the difference between qualitative and quantitative data.

Table of Contents

Marketers often seek to understand their customers deeply. Qualitative research methods such as face-to-face interviews, focus groups, and qualitative observations can provide valuable insights into your products, your market, and your customers’ opinions and motivations. Understanding these nuances can significantly enhance marketing strategies and overall customer satisfaction.

What is Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is a market research method that focuses on obtaining data through open-ended and conversational communication. This method focuses on the “why” rather than the “what” people think about you. Thus, qualitative research seeks to uncover the underlying motivations, attitudes, and beliefs that drive people’s actions. 

Let’s say you have an online shop catering to a general audience. You do a demographic analysis and you find out that most of your customers are male. Naturally, you will want to find out why women are not buying from you. And that’s what qualitative research will help you find out.

In the case of your online shop, qualitative research would involve reaching out to female non-customers through methods such as in-depth interviews or focus groups. These interactions provide a platform for women to express their thoughts, feelings, and concerns regarding your products or brand. Through qualitative analysis, you can uncover valuable insights into factors such as product preferences, user experience, brand perception, and barriers to purchase.

Types of Qualitative Research Methods

Qualitative research methods are designed in a manner that helps reveal the behavior and perception of a target audience regarding a particular topic.

The most frequently used qualitative analysis methods are one-on-one interviews, focus groups, ethnographic research, case study research, record keeping, and qualitative observation.

1. One-on-one interviews

Conducting one-on-one interviews is one of the most common qualitative research methods. One of the advantages of this method is that it provides a great opportunity to gather precise data about what people think and their motivations.

Spending time talking to customers not only helps marketers understand who their clients are, but also helps with customer care: clients love hearing from brands. This strengthens the relationship between a brand and its clients and paves the way for customer testimonials.

• A company might conduct interviews to understand why a product failed to meet sales expectations.
• A researcher might use interviews to gather personal stories about experiences with healthcare.

These interviews can be performed face-to-face or on the phone and usually last between half an hour to over two hours. 

When a one-on-one interview is conducted face-to-face, it also gives the marketer the opportunity to read the body language of the respondent and match the responses.

2. Focus groups

Focus groups gather a small number of people to discuss and provide feedback on a particular subject. The ideal size of a focus group is usually between five and eight participants. The size of focus groups should reflect the participants’ familiarity with the topic. For less important topics or when participants have little experience, a group of 10 can be effective. For more critical topics or when participants are more knowledgeable, a smaller group of five to six is preferable for deeper discussions.

The main goal of a focus group is to find answers to the “why”, “what”, and “how” questions. This method is highly effective in exploring people’s feelings and ideas in a social setting, where group dynamics can bring out insights that might not emerge in one-on-one situations.

• A focus group could be used to test reactions to a new product concept.
• Marketers might use focus groups to see how different demographic groups react to an advertising campaign.

One advantage that focus groups have is that the marketer doesn’t necessarily have to interact with the group in person. Nowadays focus groups can be sent as online qualitative surveys on various devices.

Focus groups are an expensive option compared to the other qualitative research methods, which is why they are typically used to explain complex processes.

3. Ethnographic research

Ethnographic research is the most in-depth observational method that studies individuals in their naturally occurring environment.

This method aims at understanding the cultures, challenges, motivations, and settings that occur.

• A study of workplace culture within a tech startup.
• Observational research in a remote village to understand local traditions.

Ethnographic research requires the marketer to adapt to the target audiences’ environments (a different organization, a different city, or even a remote location), which is why geographical constraints can be an issue while collecting data.

This type of research can last from a few days to a few years. It’s challenging and time-consuming and solely depends on the expertise of the marketer to be able to analyze, observe, and infer the data.

4. Case study research

The case study method has grown into a valuable qualitative research method. This type of research method is usually used in education or social sciences. It involves a comprehensive examination of a single instance or event, providing detailed insights into complex issues in real-life contexts.  

• Analyzing a single school’s innovative teaching method.
• A detailed study of a patient’s medical treatment over several years.

Case study research may seem difficult to operate, but it’s actually one of the simplest ways of conducting research as it involves a deep dive and thorough understanding of the data collection methods and inferring the data.

5. Record keeping

Record keeping is similar to going to the library: you go over books or any other reference material to collect relevant data. This method uses already existing reliable documents and similar sources of information as a data source.

• Historical research using old newspapers and letters.
• A study on policy changes over the years by examining government records.

This method is useful for constructing a historical context around a research topic or verifying other findings with documented evidence.

6. Qualitative observation

Qualitative observation is a method that uses subjective methodologies to gather systematic information or data. This method deals with the five major sensory organs and their functioning, sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing.

• Sight : Observing the way customers visually interact with product displays in a store to understand their browsing behaviors and preferences.
• Smell : Noting reactions of consumers to different scents in a fragrance shop to study the impact of olfactory elements on product preference.
• Touch : Watching how individuals interact with different materials in a clothing store to assess the importance of texture in fabric selection.
• Taste : Evaluating reactions of participants in a taste test to identify flavor profiles that appeal to different demographic groups.
• Hearing : Documenting responses to changes in background music within a retail environment to determine its effect on shopping behavior and mood.

Below we are also providing real-life examples of qualitative research that demonstrate practical applications across various contexts:

Qualitative Research Real World Examples

Let’s explore some examples of how qualitative research can be applied in different contexts.

1. Online grocery shop with a predominantly male audience

Method used: one-on-one interviews.

Let’s go back to one of the previous examples. You have an online grocery shop. By nature, it addresses a general audience, but after you do a demographic analysis you find out that most of your customers are male.

One good method to determine why women are not buying from you is to hold one-on-one interviews with potential customers in the category.

Interviewing a sample of potential female customers should reveal why they don’t find your store appealing. The reasons could range from not stocking enough products for women to perhaps the store’s emphasis on heavy-duty tools and automotive products, for example. These insights can guide adjustments in inventory and marketing strategies.

2. Software company launching a new product

Method used: focus groups.

Focus groups are great for establishing product-market fit.

Let’s assume you are a software company that wants to launch a new product and you hold a focus group with 12 people. Although getting their feedback regarding users’ experience with the product is a good thing, this sample is too small to define how the entire market will react to your product.

So what you can do instead is holding multiple focus groups in 20 different geographic regions. Each region should be hosting a group of 12 for each market segment; you can even segment your audience based on age. This would be a better way to establish credibility in the feedback you receive.

3. Alan Pushkin’s “God’s Choice: The Total World of a Fundamentalist Christian School”

Method used: ethnographic research.

Moving from a fictional example to a real-life one, let’s analyze Alan Peshkin’s 1986 book “God’s Choice: The Total World of a Fundamentalist Christian School”.

Peshkin studied the culture of Bethany Baptist Academy by interviewing the students, parents, teachers, and members of the community alike, and spending eighteen months observing them to provide a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of Christian schooling as an alternative to public education.

The study highlights the school’s unified purpose, rigorous academic environment, and strong community support while also pointing out its lack of cultural diversity and openness to differing viewpoints. These insights are crucial for understanding how such educational settings operate and what they offer to students.

Even after discovering all this, Peshkin still presented the school in a positive light and stated that public schools have much to learn from such schools.

Peshkin’s in-depth research represents a qualitative study that uses observations and unstructured interviews, without any assumptions or hypotheses. He utilizes descriptive or non-quantifiable data on Bethany Baptist Academy specifically, without attempting to generalize the findings to other Christian schools.

4. Understanding buyers’ trends

Method used: record keeping.

Another way marketers can use quality research is to understand buyers’ trends. To do this, marketers need to look at historical data for both their company and their industry and identify where buyers are purchasing items in higher volumes.

For example, electronics distributors know that the holiday season is a peak market for sales while life insurance agents find that spring and summer wedding months are good seasons for targeting new clients.

5. Determining products/services missing from the market

Conducting your own research isn’t always necessary. If there are significant breakthroughs in your industry, you can use industry data and adapt it to your marketing needs.

The influx of hacking and hijacking of cloud-based information has made Internet security a topic of many industry reports lately. A software company could use these reports to better understand the problems its clients are facing.

As a result, the company can provide solutions prospects already know they need.

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Qualitative Research Approaches

Once the marketer has decided that their research questions will provide data that is qualitative in nature, the next step is to choose the appropriate qualitative approach.

The approach chosen will take into account the purpose of the research, the role of the researcher, the data collected, the method of data analysis , and how the results will be presented. The most common approaches include:

• Narrative : This method focuses on individual life stories to understand personal experiences and journeys. It examines how people structure their stories and the themes within them to explore human existence. For example, a narrative study might look at cancer survivors to understand their resilience and coping strategies.
• Phenomenology : attempts to understand or explain life experiences or phenomena; It aims to reveal the depth of human consciousness and perception, such as by studying the daily lives of those with chronic illnesses.
• Grounded theory : investigates the process, action, or interaction with the goal of developing a theory “grounded” in observations and empirical data. 
• Ethnography : describes and interprets an ethnic, cultural, or social group;
• Case study : examines episodic events in a definable framework, develops in-depth analyses of single or multiple cases, and generally explains “how”. An example might be studying a community health program to evaluate its success and impact.

How to Analyze Qualitative Data

Analyzing qualitative data involves interpreting non-numerical data to uncover patterns, themes, and deeper insights. This process is typically more subjective and requires a systematic approach to ensure reliability and validity. 

1. Data Collection

Ensure that your data collection methods (e.g., interviews, focus groups, observations) are well-documented and comprehensive. This step is crucial because the quality and depth of the data collected will significantly influence the analysis.

2. Data Preparation

Once collected, the data needs to be organized. Transcribe audio and video recordings, and gather all notes and documents. Ensure that all data is anonymized to protect participant confidentiality where necessary.

3. Familiarization

Immerse yourself in the data by reading through the materials multiple times. This helps you get a general sense of the information and begin identifying patterns or recurring themes.

Develop a coding system to tag data with labels that summarize and account for each piece of information. Codes can be words, phrases, or acronyms that represent how these segments relate to your research questions.

• Descriptive Coding : Summarize the primary topic of the data.
• In Vivo Coding : Use language and terms used by the participants themselves.
• Process Coding : Use gerunds (“-ing” words) to label the processes at play.
• Emotion Coding : Identify and record the emotions conveyed or experienced.

5. Thematic Development

Group codes into themes that represent larger patterns in the data. These themes should relate directly to the research questions and form a coherent narrative about the findings.

6. Interpreting the Data

Interpret the data by constructing a logical narrative. This involves piecing together the themes to explain larger insights about the data. Link the results back to your research objectives and existing literature to bolster your interpretations.

7. Validation

Check the reliability and validity of your findings by reviewing if the interpretations are supported by the data. This may involve revisiting the data multiple times or discussing the findings with colleagues or participants for validation.

8. Reporting

Finally, present the findings in a clear and organized manner. Use direct quotes and detailed descriptions to illustrate the themes and insights. The report should communicate the narrative you’ve built from your data, clearly linking your findings to your research questions.

Limitations of qualitative research

The disadvantages of qualitative research are quite unique. The techniques of the data collector and their own unique observations can alter the information in subtle ways. That being said, these are the qualitative research’s limitations:

1. It’s a time-consuming process

The main drawback of qualitative study is that the process is time-consuming. Another problem is that the interpretations are limited. Personal experience and knowledge influence observations and conclusions.

Thus, qualitative research might take several weeks or months. Also, since this process delves into personal interaction for data collection, discussions often tend to deviate from the main issue to be studied.

2. You can’t verify the results of qualitative research

Because qualitative research is open-ended, participants have more control over the content of the data collected. So the marketer is not able to verify the results objectively against the scenarios stated by the respondents. For example, in a focus group discussing a new product, participants might express their feelings about the design and functionality. However, these opinions are influenced by individual tastes and experiences, making it difficult to ascertain a universally applicable conclusion from these discussions.

3. It’s a labor-intensive approach

Qualitative research requires a labor-intensive analysis process such as categorization, recording, etc. Similarly, qualitative research requires well-experienced marketers to obtain the needed data from a group of respondents.

4. It’s difficult to investigate causality

Qualitative research requires thoughtful planning to ensure the obtained results are accurate. There is no way to analyze qualitative data mathematically. This type of research is based more on opinion and judgment rather than results. Because all qualitative studies are unique they are difficult to replicate.

5. Qualitative research is not statistically representative

Because qualitative research is a perspective-based method of research, the responses given are not measured.

Comparisons can be made and this can lead toward duplication, but for the most part, quantitative data is required for circumstances that need statistical representation and that is not part of the qualitative research process.

While doing a qualitative study, it’s important to cross-reference the data obtained with the quantitative data. By continuously surveying prospects and customers marketers can build a stronger database of useful information.

Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research

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Quantitative and qualitative research are two distinct methodologies used in the field of market research, each offering unique insights and approaches to understanding consumer behavior and preferences.

As we already defined, qualitative analysis seeks to explore the deeper meanings, perceptions, and motivations behind human behavior through non-numerical data. On the other hand, quantitative research focuses on collecting and analyzing numerical data to identify patterns, trends, and statistical relationships.  

Let’s explore their key differences: 

Nature of Data:

• Quantitative research : Involves numerical data that can be measured and analyzed statistically.
• Qualitative research : Focuses on non-numerical data, such as words, images, and observations, to capture subjective experiences and meanings.

Research Questions:

• Quantitative research : Typically addresses questions related to “how many,” “how much,” or “to what extent,” aiming to quantify relationships and patterns.
• Qualitative research: Explores questions related to “why” and “how,” aiming to understand the underlying motivations, beliefs, and perceptions of individuals.

Data Collection Methods:

• Quantitative research : Relies on structured surveys, experiments, or observations with predefined variables and measures.
• Qualitative research : Utilizes open-ended interviews, focus groups, participant observations, and textual analysis to gather rich, contextually nuanced data.

Analysis Techniques:

• Quantitative research: Involves statistical analysis to identify correlations, associations, or differences between variables.
• Qualitative research: Employs thematic analysis, coding, and interpretation to uncover patterns, themes, and insights within qualitative data.

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• Last modified: January 3, 2023
• Conversion Rate Optimization , User Research

Valentin Radu

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