We recommend that first you read Discovery and Doing Grounded Theory available from Sociology Press. As soon as you are able, start collecting and analysing your data - and read Theoretical Sensitivity .
If you are doing a PhD/Masters, we assume your proposal1 has been accepted, your substantive area of interest identified and you have been through ethical review. Now is the scary moment when there are a million attractive ways open to you to prevaricate and avoid getting started; always the message is the same... just do it (Glaser 1998, p19) ... jump in and by doing it, you'll learn how to do it. You'd be better off doing it than reading what comes next!
Data Collection
A Grounded Theory may use qualitative data, quantitative data (e.g.
Glaser 1964 and
Glaser 2008) or a mixture of the two. Thus data types include but are not restricted to
- observations of the substantive area itself and activities occurring within the substantive area;2
- public or private record irrespective of form (e.g. photograph, diary, video, painting, sculpture, biography, television broadcast, news report, survey, government or organisational document, etc.);2
- conversations with individuals or a group of individuals, face-to-face or remotely [synchronously (e.g telephone, text chat) or asynchronously (e.g. email or wiki)].
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How do you interview people I asked? The reply came back 'Just do it.... you've been listening to people all your life'.3
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It can be helpful to:
- make sure you organise your time to have plenty of time for analysis between interviews. You will need time to read an interview or field-notes taken from interview.
- Before you start coding write a memo capturing the overview; what was the interview about, what were the key issues; what concepts stood out? Were there any links between concepts? Was a main concern stated? If so, what was it?
Data Analysis: Open Coding
Theoretical Sensitivity page 56 -61, Chapter 7 in Basics of Grounded Theory and Chapter 9 in Doing Grounded Theory are must read sections and tell you exactly how to open code. We remind you here that open coding and data collection are integrated activities thus the data collection stage and open coding stage occur simultaneously and continue until the core category is recognised/selected.
As you code it can be helpful to:
- be alert for the received view of the world – interpretations. You may be aware of what the literature says because of work required for ethical review and university application procedures.
- be careful about pushing professional interests. It is essential to identify what these are and be wary about following them. In our experience students who pursue the professional interest usually end up with “superficial” analysis that does not go beyond what is known.
- keep in close touch with your supervisor – or a Grounded Theory mentor – to read the interviews and code alongside them, and write memos. In our experience student learn a lot by role modelling and the discussion that takes place around analysis. The Grounded Theory mentor can prompt the student to follow through on leads. The experienced grounded theory researcher raises awareness of concepts the student might not see, and asks questions about what is happening.
- use Grounded Theory language from the beginning; talk concepts, categories, processes etc. Revise regularly what Grounded Theory is about – looking for groups patterns of behaviour. Having completed 6 interviews for example, are there processes evident, and which look as if they account for behaviour and the management of a the main concern?
- study the methodology and try to follow through on what is advised in barney’s books; some students like to run away with interviewing and think numbers are important whereas in Grounded Theory analysis drives the process.
- practice conceptualisation from the beginning.
- arrange concepts for similarities and differences. For example, if a participant talks about “knowing, attitudes and experience” each is a concept in its own right. If they were grouped together they could form a category of “learning”. The researcher is comparing data for similarities and differences – arranging the data in chunks that are similar and chunks that are very different. For instance, if a participant discusses supports – what goes alongside that? Are they talking social supports? Emotional supports? Physical supports? Structural supports, cultural? What is the difference? Does it matter? Is this relevant to the management of the main concern? How? Why?
- write memos as thoughts arise to open up your thinking. Memos are critically important as they track the theory development. Memos are also a good place to raise assumptions and ask “what am I taking for granted here as I analyse this data? Is there another way of looking at this? Are there alternative explanations? What might they be? Has anyone mentioned those ideas?” Also in memos think critical analysis as this can help to move beyond description and move to higher level thinking.
Open coding ends when the core category and the main concern become apparent; where the core category explains the behaviour in the substantive area i.e. it explains how the main concern is resolved or processed.
Footnotes
1 XIE, S.L. (2009). Striking a Balance between Program Requirements and GT Principles: Writing a compromised GT proposal The Grounded Theory Review: An international journal, 8(2), 35 - 47. might be helpful if you are currently writing your proposal.
2 If you have experience in analysing any of these data types that you are willing to share, please letusknow@groundedtheory.com and we will post with acknowledgement.
3 In conversation with Barney Glaser, GTI seminar, Malmo 2003.
© Antoinette McCallin, Alvita Nathanial and Helen Scott
