Grounded Theory

To my utter shame I have not posted a blog in a couple of months mainly because I have been caught up in working hard and actually doing some work on my PhD.

Anyway I went to an amazing Summer School today in the School of Nursing in DCU. I took the course entitled an invitation to Grounded Theory it was given by Prof Agnes Higgins from TCD.
It really was inspirational, I have been grappling with grounded theory for quite a while now and I should have known it would take a good practical women like a nurse to help me see the light.

Prof Higgins background is a mental health practitioner and she reminds me of my aunt who is the same. She gave a very good overview of Glaser and Strauss’s theories which originates in the sixties and then explained the differences in between their later work.

For those of you who have not come across Grounded Theory before it is when you do not have a theoretical framework but instead you let your theory emerge from your data.

When conducting a Grounded Theory study the two key questions you need to consider are
Whats the participants main concern?
How do they resolve their main concern?

A proper study will be rooted in behaviours, words and actions and pragmatically links diverse facts.
The goal is to find a latent pattern of behaviour and give it words.
What I found so reassuring was the fact that in a grounded theory study nothing is complete data collection, analysis or even the literature review until the entire thing is complete. So control freaks (which as you all know I am not one of) are told to avoid this approach.

Prof Higgins does not recommend grounded theory to anyone unless they are doing a PhD as its just too complicated for Masters students and you need a good bit of experience to trust that your theory will actually emerge. So it may be a while before some of you go down this route.

The final bit of advice that we got today was that a PhD is not a research study and its not just about data and findings it is instead an exercise in intellectual engagement.

I like that!