Language
Country/Area
No result found
The turning point in qualitative research: What are the key features of grounded theory?
Grounded Theory is a systematic methodology widely used in qualitative research in social sciences. The core of this methodology is to construct hypotheses and theories through data collection and analysis, and relies on inductive reasoning rather than the hypothetical-deductive model in traditional scientific research. This focuses the researcher's focus on the empirical analysis of the data, allowing theory to emerge naturally from the data.
Grounded theory emphasizes concepts and ideas that "emerge" from the data, and these concepts are annotated into codes for further analysis.
Historical background of grounded theory
The development of grounded theory originated from the collaboration of sociologists Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss, who published "The Cognition of Death" in 1965. book, which explores issues related to dying patients. Subsequently, in 1967, they further described the concept of grounded theory in detail and emphasized the importance of qualitative research, which changed people's views on qualitative research and gradually gained more recognition and application in social sciences. .
Philosophical basis
Grounded theory combines the ideas of positivism, general sociology and symbolic interactionism to enable researchers to more comprehensively understand the social situations in which humans live.
Grounded theory relies particularly on symbolic interactionism, a school of thought that emphasizes the meaning individuals attribute to social interactions. This background enables researchers to explore people's active participation in social behavior and the richness of their expression.
Basic principles
The grounded theory method provides a way to generate hypotheses from qualitative data. Qualitative researchers usually ask questions such as "What happened?" and "What are the participants' main questions?" Unlike traditional research methods, the hypotheses here are not established in advance, but are generated naturally as the data is presented.
Methodology
The analysis process of grounded theory usually includes basic steps such as coding, recording, and theory construction. These steps are all performed in the process of constantly comparing and examining data.
The coding of data is usually divided into open coding and selective coding. Researchers will code the preliminary data line by line, and then gradually discover and establish higher-level concepts and theoretical frameworks. In this process, documentation also plays a key role in helping researchers tease out potential theoretical perspectives.
Coding and recording
The coding process emphasizes classifying events in the data and creating a hierarchical structure. During the process of these classifications, the researcher continued to compare, relabel, and adjust concepts. Through this cyclical process, the underlying theory gradually becomes clear, ultimately leading to the writing and publication of the theory.
Conclusion
Grounded theory provides assistance to qualitative research, can generate new insights and theories, and emphasizes the importance of the researcher's subjective experience in theory construction. But in the face of changing social realities, can grounded theory create more and deeper understanding?
