Grounded Theory Approach - The Nature, Origins, and Consequences of Finnish Shame-Proneness : A

2. Methodology

2.2. Procedure

2.2.1. Grounded Theory Approach

Grounded theory (GT) was developed by the two sociologists Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss in the 1960s.⁵⁸¹ As a qualitative research method with its theoretical foundations in symbolic interactionism, grounded theory was developed for the purpose of studying social phenomena.⁵⁸² The pioneer of symbolic interactionism, George Herbert Mead, founded the Chicago school of symbolic interactionism with another scholar under his tutelage, Herbert Blumer. Symbolic interactionism is defined as “a form of social constructionism which posits the existence of a socially derived self; this self mediates the individual’s interaction with the environment.”⁵⁸³ For symbolic interactionists, “meanings” play an important role in understanding human behavior, interactions and social processes.⁵⁸⁴ According to Blumer, symbolic interactionism rests on three simple premises: firstly, “human beings act toward

579 According to McMillan (2000, 270), research problems in grounded theory studies are “focused on what happened to individuals, why they believe it happened as it did, and what it means to them.”

580 Strauss and Corbin (1998, 127) state that “If one studies structure only, then one learns why but not how certain events occur. If one studies process only, then one understands how persons act/interact but not why.

One must study both structure and process to capture the dynamic and evolving nature of events.”

581 Read more about the details of the history of grounded theory in Creswell 2002.

582 Baker, Wuest & Stern 1992, 1356.

583 Osborne 1994, 176.

584 Jeon 2004, 250.

things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them”; secondly, “the meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with one’s fellows”; and thirdly, “these meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he encounters.”⁵⁸⁵ The goal of symbolic interactionism is to understand the meaning of “the complex world of lived experience from the point of view of those who live it.”⁵⁸⁶ Symbolic interactionism expresses the unity of the thought/action “in the way in which meaning is shaped by the environment and also construed by the person.”⁵⁸⁷ According to Annels, “the understanding of grounded theory method is partly dependent on an awareness of the method’s ontological, epistemological, and methodological perspectives; the traditional symbolic interactionist theoretical underpinnings; and the identification of the relevant paradigm of inquiry within which the method resides.”⁵⁸⁸

Jeon noted that “symbolic interactionists have much in common with phenomenologists, in their emphasis on the individual’s lived experience, the inner world of human behaviour, the notion of meaning perceived by the participant, and understanding a situation from the participant’s point of view.”⁵⁸⁹ Regardless of their common features, grounded theory and phenomenological research also differ: “While grounded theory shares phenomenological research’s interest in description and understanding there is an avowed focus upon the inductive development of theory to explain the phenomenon of interest.”⁵⁹⁰ The phenomenological research notices the participant perspectives and emphasizes the fact that

“there are multiple ways of interpreting the same experience, and that the meaning of the experience to each participant is what constitutes reality.” According to Glaser and Strauss, the purpose of grounded theory is “the discovery of theory from data.”⁵⁹¹ Thus, the researcher using grounded theory builds rather than tests a theory.⁵⁹²

After publishing the pioneering book of grounded theory, The Discovery of Grounded Theory, in 1967, Glaser and Strauss refined both the theoretical and practical sides of their early methods and independently authored two books.⁵⁹³ Strauss teamed with Juliet Corbin and in 1990 published the book the Basis of Qualitative Research, explaining how to construct in-depth, cogent and dense grounded theories in a consistent manner.⁵⁹⁴ Strauss and Corbin’s decision to take the procedures of grounded theory to “new levels” was not warmly welcomed by Glaser.⁵⁹⁵ In 1992, he published the book Emergence vs. forcing: Basics of grounded theory analysis, which was meant to “set researchers using grounded theory on a correct path to discovery and theory generation.”⁵⁹⁶ Glaser’s criticism was directed to the new coding process that Strauss and Corbin had introduced. This new coding process, or

585 Blumer 1969/1998, 2.

586 Schwandt 1994, 118, 123.

587 Osborne 1994, 168.

588 Annells 1996, 379.

589 Jeon 2004, 250.

590 Osborne 1994, 181.

591 Glaser & Strauss 1967, 1.

592 Strauss & Corbin 1998, 13.

593 Strauss 1987; Glaser 1992.

594 Kendall 1999, 745.

595 Creswell 2002, 440.

596 Glaser 1992, 3.

“paradigm” as Strauss and Corbin called it, involves conditions, action/interactional strategies and consequences associated with a phenomenon. In the model conditions are “a conceptual way of grouping answers to the questions why, where, how come, and when.”

Actions/interactions are “strategic or routine responses made by individuals or groups to issues, problems, happenings, or events that arise under those conditions” and they are

“represented by the questions of whom and how.” Consequences are “outcomes of actions/interactions.” According to Strauss and Corbin, this paradigm is “nothing more than a perspective taken toward data, another analytic stance that helps to systematically gather and order data in such a way that structure and process are integrated.”⁵⁹⁷ Glaser claimed that following Strauss and Corbin’s method of grounded theory will lead simply to conceptual descriptions and preconceived outcomes rather than substantive theory.⁵⁹⁸ In the second edition of Basis of Qualitative Research published in 1998, Strauss and Corbin rejected Glaser’s accusation that they allowed preconceptions to pollute theory generation. They stated that using their method of grounded theory “a researcher does not begin a project with a preconceived theory in mind … rather, the researcher begins with an area of study and allows the theory to emerge from the data.”⁵⁹⁹

Glaser’s approach of grounded theory places much less emphasis on the deductive phase. He stated that in grounded theory the researcher “just lets concepts emerge and their theoretical codes emerge, which becomes hypotheses—induction—and then maybe for theoretical sampling, conceptually elaborates a bit to get more data on a thin area through more data collection.” He adds that “grounded theory is induction from data, with a bare minimum of deduction from the emergent, to further data collection.”⁶⁰⁰ Charmaz asserted that Strauss and Corbin’s method is “didactic and prescriptive rather than emergent and interactive.”⁶⁰¹ She also challenged Glaser’s demands of induction and states that “no qualitative method rests on pure induction—the questions we ask of the empirical world frame what we know of it.”⁶⁰² Strauss and Corbin did not claim that their method is purely inductive. They stated that

“anytime that a researcher derives hypotheses from data, because it involves interpretation, we consider that to be a deductive process.”⁶⁰³ Charmaz criticized Glaser’s and Strauss and Corbin’s attempts to “draw upon objectivist assumptions founded in positivism.”⁶⁰⁴ Annels noted that “the grounded theory method has traditionally been sited in a postpositivist inquiry paradigm but is evolving and moving toward the constructivist inquiry paradigm.”⁶⁰⁵ Charmaz introduced the constructivist adaptation of grounded theory which means that grounded theory methods have two somewhat different forms: constructivist and objectivist.⁶⁰⁶ According to her, the constructivist perspective “places priority on the phenomena of study and sees both data and analysis as created from the shared experiences of researcher and participants and the researcher’s relationships with participants” and the

597 Strauss & Corbin 1990, 127-128, 130-135.

598 Glaser 1992, 3.

599 Strauss & Corbin 1998, 12.

600 Glaser 1992, 85.

601 Charmaz 2000, 524.

602 Charmaz 2005, 509.

603 Strauss & Corbin 1998, 22.

604 Charmaz 2005, 509.

605 Annells 1996, 379.

606 Charmaz 1990, 1162, 1170-1171; Charmaz 1995, 31-47; Charmaz 2003b, 313.

objectivist perspective assumes that there is “an external reality awaiting discovery and an unbiased observer who records facts about it.”⁶⁰⁷ Creswell called Strauss and Corbin’s approach of grounded theory the systematic design, Glaser’s approach the emerging design and Charmaz’s approach the constructive design.⁶⁰⁸ Despite the differences of emphasis, all three grounded theory approaches use simultaneous and sequential collection and the analysis of data and constant comparative processes with an emerging theory and they all seek to generate a theory that explains the phenomenon under study.⁶⁰⁹

Using Strauss and Corbin’s systematic grounded theory design the present study employs the constant comparative method, the use of data analysis steps of open, axial, and selective coding, core category, theoretical sampling, memo writing, and simultaneously-occurring theory generation.⁶¹⁰ Figure 3 illustrates the coding and analysis process in grounded theory.

Strauss and Corbin underlined that “analysis is not a structured, static, or rigid process” but it is rather “a free-flowing and creative one in which analysts move quickly back and forth between types of coding, using analytic techniques and procedures freely and in response to the analytic task before analysts.”⁶¹¹ In the first steps of analysis, open coding, “data are broken down into discrete parts, closely examined, and compared for similarities and differences.” Grounded theorists use comparative methods in this initial phase of segmenting information to generate categories (higher level and more abstract than concepts) and their properties.⁶¹² Constant comparison is a data analysis procedure that generates, classifies and connects categories, brings out their possible properties and dimensions, and specifies the conditions under which a specific category is linked to other categories. That is done by comparing incidents in the data to other incidents, objects to other objects, incidents to other categories and categories to similar or different concepts.⁶¹³ Keeping in mind the phenomenon, analysts start to build from the actual data a list of properties and dimensions of categories. These are validated and extended in further analysis and data collection.⁶¹⁴ Strauss and Corbin noted that “when an analyst groups data into patterns according to certain defined characteristics, it should be understood that not every object, event, happening, or person fits a pattern completely.”⁶¹⁵

607 Charmaz 2003b, 313.

608 Creswell 2002, 441.

609 Creswell 2002, 447-448; Charmaz 2003b, 313.

610 Strauss & Corbin 1998, 73, 101, 123, 143, 146, 201, 217; Jeon 2004, 252.

611 Strauss & Corbin 1998, 58.

612 Strauss & Corbin 1998, 94, 102, 143.

613 Strauss & Corbin 1998, 94; Creswell 2002, 451; Charmaz 2003b, 325.

614 Strauss & Corbin 1998, 96.

615 Strauss & Corbin 1998, 118.

Open coding Axial coding Selective coding

Line-by line analysis Subcategories (of a category) Explicate storyline

Concepts Causal conditions Core category

(determine properties and dimensions)

Categories Phenomenon

Subsidiary Paradigm categories

Subcategories Context (dimensional range)

Properties Intervening conditions

(characteristics, attributes) Relate categories at dimensional level

Action/interaction strategies Dimensional range

(locations of properties Validate relationships against data along continuum) Consequences

Develop conceptual density Fill in categories

Figure 3. Eaves’s diagrammatic representation of Strauss and Corbin’s coding and analysis of GT.⁶¹⁶

An intermediate set of coding procedures, axial coding, the second phase of analysis in Strauss and Corbin’s grounded theory, largely caused the controversy between Strauss and Corbin and Glaser.⁶¹⁷ Strauss and Corbin contend axial coding is “the process of reassembling data that were fractured during open coding.” In axial coding analysts use an earlier mentioned coding paradigm to develop, link and relate categories systematically with subcategories at the dimensional level. Categories are considered saturated when “no new information seems to emerge during coding” and “and the analysis has accounted for much of the possible variability.” This means that no new properties, dimensions, causal, intervening and contextual conditions, action/interactional strategies, or consequences are seen in the data.⁶¹⁸ According to Kendall, Glaser insists that “the codes used and, in fact, the actual labels placed on the codes should be driven by conceptual interests that have emerged from the data and not 'forced' into any particular scheme, such as the paradigm model.”⁶¹⁹ Charmaz argued that axial coding “adds complexity to the method but may not improve the analysis.”⁶²⁰

616 Eaves 2001, 660

617 Kendall 1999, 747.

618 Strauss & Corbin 1998, 124-127, 131-136, 143. According to Strauss & Corbin (1998, 136), “saturation is more a matter of reaching the point in the research where collecting additional data seems counterproductive;

the ‘new’ that is uncovered does not add much more to the explanation at this time.”

619 Kendall 1999, 747-748.

620 Charmaz 2003b, 328.

The last set of coding procedures, selective coding, is a process of integrating and refining the categories and grounding the final theory. The first step in integrating and defining is to decide on a so called central or core category that represents the main theme of the study.⁶²¹ The core category of data “accounts for most of the variation of the central phenomenon of concern and around which all the other categories are integrated.”⁶²² Strauss and Corbin suggested writing a storyline as a technique to identify the core category.⁶²³ Grounded theory analysts write a theory from the interrelationship of the categories in the axial coding model.

This theory provides an abstract explanation for the process under study and the storyline is a basis for theorizing “how certain factors influence the phenomenon leading to the use of specific strategies with certain outcomes.”⁶²⁴ Following the grounded theory methodology, theorists move during the process of analysis from level one, “in vivo codes”⁶²⁵ or substantive codes that are the “participants’ own words for their experiences,” to a more abstract level two, categorical codes, then to level three, conceptual and theoretical codes that are “the building blocks of theory.”⁶²⁶

Theoretical sampling and memos play an essential role in grounded theory research. Memos are analysts’ “record of analysis, thoughts, interpretations, questions, and directions for further data collection.”⁶²⁷ Charmaz postulates that “memos can range from loosely constructed 'free writes' about the codes to tightly reasoned analytic statements.” She listed the benefits that writing memos gives to grounded theorists, suggesting that they inspire ideas researchers can explore in later interviews, help to discover gaps in earlier research materials, to make explicit comparisons, to define and clarify categories, to state the properties of categories, and to delineate the categories’ conditions, consequences, and connections with other categories. She noted that memos should be written quickly and they should be as detailed as possible.⁶²⁸ In theory building, grounded theory analysts can fill in poorly developed categories by going through raw data, reviewing memos, or going “back into the field and selectively gather[ing] data about that category through theoretical sampling.”

Theoretical sampling helps in data gathering because analysts can go “to places, people, or events that will maximize opportunities to discover variations among concepts and to densify categories in terms of their properties and dimensions.”⁶²⁹ Through theoretical sampling, analysts can also identify the relevant contexts of categories, specify the conditions under which categories arise, are maintained, and vary as well as discover the consequences of categories.⁶³⁰ Based on the personal experience of the present study, the beauty of using grounded theory is that when using other research methods a researcher usually draws results and makes conclusions from the collected data but when developing a grounded theory a researcher keeps collecting and analyzing data until the results make sense with regards to the current phenomenon.

621 Strauss & Corbin 1998, 143-148.

622 Kendall 1999, 747.

623 Strauss & Corbin 1998, 148.

624 Creswell 2002, 444.

625 Strauss & Corbin 1998, 105.

626 Wilson & Hutchinson 1996, 123.

627 Strauss & Corbin 1998, 202-203.

628 Charmaz 2003b, 323.

629 Strauss & Corbin 1998, 158, 201.

630 Charmaz 2003a, 266.

79 Methodological Challenges in Grounded Theory

Strauss and Corbin stressed that there is no need for the grounded theory analyst to review all of the literature in the field before commencing data collection and analysis because “the literature can hinder creativity if it is allowed to stand between the researcher and the data.”

Nevertheless, they admit that literature can be useful during the study, for example, as a secondary source of data or as an indication for the direction of theoretical sampling. In addition, reviewing the literature early in the study stimulates questions during the analysis process and gives the researcher a basis for confirming findings.⁶³¹Dey postulates that ignoring the literature of theory on that area of study at the beginning of a study could help the researcher avoid theoretical preconceptions.⁶³² In support of conducting a literature review before developing the categories of the study, McGhee et al. argued doing so can provide a justification for the study, help the researcher avoid conceptual and methodological pitfalls, discover the extent of previous knowledge and therefore assess whether grounded theory is an appropriate method, and be ‘open minded’ but not ‘empty headed’. Arguments against doing a literature review before developing research categories include: assertions that reviews constrain, contaminate or inhibit, and prevent the researcher from recognizing assumptions, prompting him or her to generate a focus based on the literature rather than on the emerging data. They concluded “despite the controversy surrounding the place of the literature review, that the debate really concerns the need to stay open-minded and that the staging of the literature review is a means to this end and not an end in itself.”⁶³³

Wilson and Hutchinson identified six methodological mistakes in grounded theory: muddling qualitative methods, generational erosion, premature closure, overly generic labels, importing concepts, and methodological transgression. According to them, muddling qualitative methods refers to the analyst compromising the principles of the grounded theory approach by integrating techniques and typology from such alternative qualitative approaches as phenomenology. Generational erosion is “an undermining of the original canons for grounded theory research.” In premature closure an analyst “underanalyzes” the data and

“fails to move beyond the face value of the content.” The result is a study that never transcends “the initial in vivo level of analysis” and the findings are “based solely on participants’ descriptive phrases instead of concepts.” Overly generic refers to an analysis where an analyst selects names for discovered conceptual processes that are not “situation-specific” but they are “so general that they could apply to any experience or phenomenon.”

Importing concepts occurs when an analyst does not suspend “preconceptions, disciplinary perspectives, and previous readings when examining the data” but adapts preconceived notions. Doing this “fails to provide an original and grounded interpretation.” The last methodological mistake that Wilson and Hutchinson listed, methodological transgression, refers to “frank violations of the grounded theory philosophy and methodology.” This occurs when instead of operating according to any version of grounded theory “canons of quantitative, positivist method are slightly modified and applied to interview or textual data.”⁶³⁴ Cutcliffe reminded that analysts doing grounded theory research should focus their

631 Strauss & Corbin 1998, 49-53.

632 Dey 1999, 4.

633 McGhee & Marland 2007, 336, 341.

634 Wilson & Hutchinson 1996, 122-124.

“attention to issues of precision, including avoiding method slurring, ensuring theoretical coding occurs, and predominantly using one method of grounded theory while explaining and describing any deviation away from this chosen method.”⁶³⁵

Becker noted that some grounded theory studies are often actually descriptive rather than discovery studies. She introduced five problematic areas in published grounded theory studies: use of selective rather than theoretical sampling, failure to allow the research problem to emerge from the data, using the wrong theoretical lens (theoretical perspective), tendency to analyze data at the conclusion of data collection (not involving analysis throughout the process of data collection), and the reliance on computer programs to identify core variables.⁶³⁶ Benoliel highlighted also the methodological heterogeneity of the grounded theory studies. Her analysis of 146 grounded theory studies in nursing published between 1980 and 1994 revealed three categories of studies that she labeled as grounded theory approach, grounded theory method and grounded theory research. Grounded theory approach was identified as research that used interview data only and failed to identify basic social processes. Studies labeled as grounded theory methods were discussions of grounded theory as a method, not reports of a study. Finally, grounded theory research “focused on the social psychological processes of people undergoing major life changes, and to a variable extent, on

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