Grounded Theory

Grounded Theory (originally developed as Constant Comparative Method) is a flexible and systematic approach to data collection and the analysis of data. Grounded theory is a
systematic methodology involving the construction of ‘concepts’ through regular gathering and analysis of data (Charmaz, 2006). Grounded theory is sought to give an account of the meaning that actors give to actions, events and objects, which leads to the reasons for their behaviour.

The main characteristic of grounded theory is its inductive reasoning (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Grounded theory starts with the collection of qualitative data. As researchers review the data collected, repeated ideas, concepts or elements become apparent, and are tagged with codes which have been extracted from the data. As more data is collected, and re-reviewed, codes can be grouped into concepts, and then into categories. These categories may become the basis for a new theory (Glaser, 2002). Grounded theory is particularly useful for the creation of new theories due to its critical perspective. It requires a significant amount of data and can be criticised due to its subjectivity and open ended and process-oriented perspective ending in a narrative description more than a numerical estimation (Oliver, 2011)

Grounded Theory: GO-GN Insights

Virginia Rodés used a qualitative methodology based on the Grounded Theory (together with the Biographical Method and Digital Ethnography) with twelve subjects, teaching staff of three public universities in three Latin American countries (Uruguay, Costa Rica and Venezuela) to understand the dimensions of the adoption of OER and Repositories of OER (ROER) by Latin American universities.

“Grounded theory seeks to give an account of the meaning that actors give to actions, events and objects, which leads to the reasons for their social actions. This through inductive procedures, observing society from within, participating in the construction of categories of understanding both common sense, as members of society, and categories of theoretical understanding, as researchers. What twe incorporate as a problematic object of study and observation are precisely the first level typologies of the social world we are investigating. This means that the categories that the actors use in their current action in the first instance become an object of study and then, a second level observation is done, categorizing the categories that the actors have performed on the first level. The Grounded Theory method moves research and researcher towards the development of theory (Charmaz and Mitchell, 2001). On the contrary, ethnography is based on the development of a complete description of a society or group of people and, therefore, provides the details of their daily lives. As a method, ethnography refers to the ways of studying; Know and inform about the world. According to Charmaz and Mitchell (2001) both grounded theory and ethnography have common roots in the sociology of the Chicago School with its pragmatic philosophical foundations. Since then, Grounded Theory and Ethnography have developed somewhat differently, however these approaches can complement each other.

“The Grounded Theory method can expedite fieldwork and move ethnographic research towards theoretical interpretation, while resorting to ethnographic method can prevent studies based on grounded theory from dissolving into “fast and dirty” qualitative research. The biographical methodology gathers people’s experience as they process and interpret it. This revelation of facts and interpretations explicitly or implicitly is filtered by the beliefs, attitudes and values of the protagonist. Through the biographical you can know meanings and contexts of meanings of the individual, as part of the social, or social structures and norms. The subject does not speak of the intimate as his sensation, but speaks of his social “I”. Our methodological approach also integrates the virtual ethnographic method (Hine, 2000), also called digital ethnographic methods, which make use of Internet and digital technologies for the collection and analysis of research data. Digital ethnography allows us to take advantage of the potential that technologies are offering to project knowledge about reality in contemporary society in greater depth, both in terms of the definition of the object of knowledge itself and the methodological design to access it. It is in this sense that digital ethnography techniques are incorporated into the design of my research. Within the framework of high technological availability scenarios, methods of the data collection techniques typical of the ethnographic methodology can be expanded to include web conferences, chat, videoconferences, forums, among others. From the use of this type of resources, digital narratives can be obtained, stories by subjects conceived as spokespersons or social representatives of the groups and communities.”

Hélène Pulker followed Constructivist Grounded Theory methods of data collection and analysis to conduct an inductive qualitative study into the impact of reuse and adaptation of OER among language teachers.

“Regardless of the chosen method, there are no absolute rules or formula for attending to qualitative data analysis or any ways to replicate perfectly the researcher’s analytical thought processes. The available guidelines and suggestions are not rules and therefore each qualitative researcher will have to find their own way through the data. As a result, each qualitative analysis is unique and therefore makes your research original. However, it rely on the researcher’s skills, who constantly has to make judgements and exercise creativity while applying the guidelines.

“The analysis depends on the analytical intellect and flair of the researcher and the human factor is the great strength and the fundamental weakness of
qualitative enquiry. The great advantage is the flexibility. Throughout my data collection and analysis, I continuously analysed and questioned data through coding, re-coding, comparing codes, and finding sub-categories to arrive at the final analysis. This process allowed me to look for the emergence of unexpected trends and to make connections between the codes. As I observed and questioned the data, it became clear that participants were experiencing OER reuse in different ways. I could identify some similarities across a number of participants and was able to identify three different types of OER users, each having different characteristics. From that point onwards, I was able to explain the categories by comparing data from each type of user’s point of view and I arrived at a more comprehensive analysis of the reuse process that emerged from my study. The robustness of the data analysis lies in the cross comparison of categories and types of user, as I explain in my thesis.

“However, the big downside is the complexity of finding your way through the data because there are no preconceived codes or theoretical framework you can rely on. The codes developed in the analysis are largely provisional to start with and very often subject to much change. The principles of interpretative coding are not as straightforward a procedure as I had originally imagined. Coding for meaning is nebulous and has posed challenges. The gradual formation of codes and categories was, in my analysis, rather a tentative process whereby I could see that putting different ‘pieces’ together would yield different meanings. Thus, my experience was often one of going round and round the data. A further contributory factor to the difficulty in deciding on the label for a code was the absence of an overarching framework for looking at the data. In other words, I did not have an overarching view of which cocepts might be included in the schema. I would recommend students who wish to do grounded theory to think about the differences between inductive and deductive analysis and be very sure that they do not want to rely on theoretical framework to start with, because the grounded theory analysis takes a long long time, and when the researcher has possible avenues to explore to start with, it is easier to handle a set of data. I would also recommend the use of a data analysis software, even though the Constructivist grounded theorists advise against this for epistemological reasons.”

Useful references for Grounded Theory: Charmaz (2006); Corbin & Strauss (2015)’ Glaser & Strauss (1967); Glaser (2002); James (2013); Oliver (2011)