I will share my understanding towards grounded theory based on the textbook by Creswell and Guetterman (2019) on this site. I will write multiple posts, in line with the sections on the book (the definition of grounded theory, the types of grounded theory, the key characteristics of grounded theory, steps in conducting grounded theory research, and how to evaluate the grounded theory research), to give a holistic introduction of grounded theory.
Before we start to explore the grounded theory design, I think the word “grounded” is way abstract since we are all new to this research design (at least to me when I began to read the chapter), so l want to clarify what “grounded” means here. Based on the definition by Creswell and Guetterman (2019), I argue that “grounded” is actually a synonym of “founded in” or “come from”. Grounded theory focuses on building a theory and creates meaning from data – “the researcher stays close to the data at all times in the [data] analysis” (Creswell and Guetterman, 2019, p. 434). Now let’s see Creswell and Guetterman’s (2019) original definition for grounded theory.
According to Creswell and Guetterman (2019), grounded theory is “a systematic qualitative procedure used to generate a theory that explains, at a broad conceptual level, a process, an action, or an interaction about a substantive topic” that occurs over time (p. 434). For the beginning qualitative researcher, grounded theory offers a step-by-step, systematic procedure for analyzing data.
In other words, grounded theory studies people’s experience with some kind of process and then creates a theory or an explanation of how that process works; it is worth noting that the theory that the researcher generates in the study is generated only from the data collected in the study; the theory does not come from other sources, such as textbooks and researcher own opinions. That is why grounded theory is called “GROUNDED THEORY” – the theory is “grounded” in the data collected in the study and focuses on building a theory.
In grounded theory, when we want to describe a phenomenon, we look at it from a theoretical perspective – “the events, activities, actions, or interactions” (Creswell & Guetterman, 2019, p. 434 ) may constitute the object of the study; what grounded theory does is to develop a theory that explains what the phenomenon that we are looking at is.
So when do we use grounded theory? According to the textbook (Creswell & Guetterman, 2019), the following three conditions would fit:
- When the researcher needs a broad theory or explanation of a process and wishes to study some process.
- Grounded theory generates a theory when existing theories do not address the problem or the participants being studied.
- Because a theory of “grounded” in the data, it provided a better explanation than existing theories because it fits the situation and actually works in practice; it is sensitive to individuals in a particular setting, and may represent the complexities found in the process.
Reference
Creswell, J. W. & Guetterman, T. C. (2019). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (6th ed.). Boston: Pearson.
Grounded Theory Design 