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Do you know how grounded theory revolutionized social science research?
Grounded theory is a systematic methodology used primarily in qualitative research by social scientists. The core of this methodology is to build hypotheses and theories through the collection and analysis of data. Different from the hypothesis-deduction model in traditional scientific research, grounded theory adopts the method of inductive reasoning, emphasizing that concepts and ideas in the data naturally "emerge", providing researchers with a more flexible framework to understand and explain human behavior.
Grounded theory research begins with a question or even just the collection of qualitative data, and ideas and concepts emerge during the review of the data.
Background
Grounded theory was developed by two sociologists, Barney Glaser and Ansel Strauss. They first proposed the constant comparison method in their research on hospitalized patients, which later became one of the core methods of grounded theory. In 1965, their book The Awareness of Death significantly increased the influence of this methodology in medical sociology, psychology, and psychiatry.
Philosophical Foundations
Grounded theory combines the traditions of positivist philosophy, general sociology, and symbolic interactionism. According to Ralph, Burkes, and Chapman, grounded theory is "methodologically dynamic," meaning that it is not just a complete methodology, but a way of constructing methods to better understand human situations. Way.
Grounded theory seeks to explain how participants addressed their core issues and to provide a basis for the generation of theory.
Methodology of Grounded Theory
After collecting data, the grounded theory analysis process includes coding, theorizing, integrating, and writing theory. This process enables concepts and categories in the data to be systematized, leading to the generation of hypotheses and theories. This “open coding” approach is the first step, where researchers need to code line by line to identify useful concepts, name these concepts, and then conduct further data analysis and comparison.
Importance of CodingThe process of encoding categorizes events and creates a hierarchy. Researchers use the method of "continuous comparison" to continuously compare the relationships between different categories, thereby forming new concepts and categories. During this process, core variables were identified as best explaining the participants’ main concerns.
Grounded theory focuses on generating concepts that are abstract and general without overly considering the accuracy of the data.
Writing and Reflection Process
After organizing the coding results, the researcher will write a preliminary theory. This stage links the different categories to core variables and forms an explanatory theory about the topic. The characteristic of grounded theory is that researchers do not need to conduct a literature review before conducting the research, so as not to pre-influence the interpretation of the data. Only at the end of the later stages of theory writing can the literature be considered as supplementary material.
Use of Theory and Future Directions
An important rule for using grounded theory is to avoid discussing the theory with others before it is formed, so as to avoid the influence of external evaluation on the researcher's motivation. The success of this method lies in its flexibility and ability to self-adjust to the data, allowing researchers to continue to deduce from observations. As the field of social sciences continues to develop, will the application of grounded theory be further expanded to emerging research areas in the future?
