Grounded theory is a powerful and rigorous research method for developing theory directly from data. It will enable you “to identify the main concern of a population and understand how that population resolves or processes its shared concern: it helps you explain what people do and, importantly, to explain what varies what they do.” (Scott, 2025, p. 4)

Why use grounded theory?

Researchers using this method want to understand what is going on for a group of people in an area of interest and often seek to provide practical recommendations for targeted and impactful change. Using Grounded Theory: How to Develop Theory for Managed Change can show you how.

A Versatile and Rigorous Method

Grounded Theory is a general research method, which can be used with any theoretical or philosophical perspective and because it is highly adaptable to different populations and areas of interest, it is used in many disciplines.

Grounded theory is:

1. Flexible:  The method works with research conversations, observations, documents, diaries, biographies, images, videos and more. Also descriptive data arising from surveys, statistics, and other numerical data^*.
2. Rigorous: GT provides transparent procedures for coding, constant comparison and theory development.
3. Practical: GT produces theories grounded in real concerns that are directly useful for practice and policy.

The goal: explaining the “main concern”

The grounded theory research method seeks to develop a theory that offers an explanation of the main concern of a population of interest, and how that concern is resolved or processed.

Consider these examples:

• Adult online Learners: In my PhD study, the main concern was finding the time to study. The way that learners processed this concern was through a process of temporal integration. This theory identified different learner types based on their strategies: ‘Jugglers’ and ‘Strugglers’ used successful (though sometimes painful) integration strategies, while ‘Fade-aways’ simply faded away from the learning opportunity and ‘Leavers’ left abruptly. Understanding temporal integration has direct implications for improving learning design and student persistence.
• Nurses: In Nathanial’s study, the main concern was moral distress. The core category that emerged to explain how they processed this was moral reckoning.
• Interdisciplinary teams: In McCallin’s research, the main concern was client service delivery, which was resolved through the core category of pluralistic dialoguing.**

Grounded theory focuses on patterns of behaviour (including reasoning) and seeks to understand what people do and what varies what people do.

To gain a deeper understanding of how grounded theories can be structured and written, try reading these and other studies during your research project.

Understanding grounded theory: from data to theory

Grounded theory is a method for discovering the latent social patterns and relevant social structures that lie within your area of interest.

Unlike a traditional research design that starts with a hypothesis to test, or an idea to verify, a grounded theorist begins collecting data, and concurrently generates theory directly from their data – using a set of procedures.

Grounded theory is both method and outcome!

The term ‘grounded theory’ can be confusing because it refers to two distinct conceptual artefacts:

1. The Research Method, which offers a systematic process of data collection and analysis (described below).
2. The Output: The final theory that is produced by the method—a theory that is, by definition, grounded in data.

The grounded theory research process: an iterative journey

The grounded theory research method provides rigorous guidance on data collection and analysis. The process is iterative, moving from a more inductive to a more deductive phase.

1. Inductive Phase: Using the process of constant comparison you begin to generate codes/concepts. Constant comparison involves comparing incident-to-incident; incident-to-concept; concept-to-concept. Identifying the core category — the central concept which links to all other concepts — is a key milestone in the process and marks the beginning of the more deductive phase.
2. Deductive Phase: As your analysis progresses your level of conceptualisation increases and a preliminary theory starts to take form in your memos. This developing theory guides your subsequent data collection, suggesting where to look next and which more-focused questions to ask.

Carefully applying the procedures of the grounded theory research method enables novice researchers to produce a robust grounded theory!

Exploring the unknown

Because it builds theory from the ground up, grounded theory is inherently an exploratory method. You will not know precisely what you are studying until the core category—the central concept to which all others relate—is identified from your analysis.

Ready to begin your grounded theory study?

If you are looking to apply this powerful method to your own research, we can provide the mentorship, training and support you need to progress your study with confidence.

*There is a separate set of procedures for developing grounded theory from raw quantitative date. (See Glaser, 2008).

** In the examples provided in the overview, the central concepts that explain these processes are also the core categories. Bear in mind that the core category is not always a process, for example for Glaser and Strauss the core category was “awareness context” (Glaser & Strauss, 1965).