Grounded theory in practice: issues and discussion for new qualitative researchers
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/00220411011016380 |
| Date | 19 January 2010 |
| Published date | 19 January 2010 |
| Pages | 93-112 |
| Author | Jin Tan |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Grounded theory in practice:
issues and discussion for new
qualitative researchers
Jin Tan
formerly Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield, Sheffield,
UK and now Sir Herbert Duthie Library, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to clarify four common confusions in grounded theory (GT)
use by demonstrating an example of the author’s doctoral study into conceptualising higher education
students’ learning and knowledge sharing by exploring blogging phenomena. It seeks not only to
present the author’s personal experience and views, but also to shed light on the causes of the
confusion for novice qualitative researchers.
Design/methodology/approach – A review of literature on GT and the author’s practical
experience of undertaking an empirical study into the blogging phenomenon in LIS discipline form the
approach to addressing the issue.
Findings – The paper summarises four common issues that hinder inexperienced qualitative
researchers when they undertake GT research: using GT as a methodology or method; how to use
literature review; how to use coding strategy; and what is the generated theory.
Practical implications – The paper provides practical suggestions of what matters when adopting
GT approach. It needs more new researchers to further confirm the suggestions that the author stated
in terms of a researcher’s unique experience.
Originality/value – The paper attempts to bridge the gap of insufficient discussion in the literature,
focuses on new researchers’ GT adopting experiences and provides them with practical directions.
Keywords Literature, Codes
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The adoption of grounded theory (GT) approach in library and information science
(LIS) derives from the 1980s. However, the debates and suspicions for using GT in
terms of its rigour and robustness is continuously confusing those who are relatively
new to qualitative research. The author recently finished a doctoral reseach stu dy
using a GT approach to explore the nature of blogging and how higher education (HE)
students’ learning and knowledge sharing are being facilitated through using blogs. By
her experience in this study, she attempts to discuss some key arguable issues of
undertaking GT research for inexperienced qualitative researchers. The article
provides an overview of GT. Particularly, it focuses on clarifying common confusions
of applying this approch from four aspects:
(1) whether GT is a methodology or a method;
(2) literature review in GT;
(3) coding strategies; and
(4) what theory is generated.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
Grounded theory
in practice
93
Received 2 December 2008
Revised 15 April 2009
Accepted 17 April 2009
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 66 No. 1, 2010
pp. 93-112
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/00220411011016380
It is hoped the discussion will provide an important step towards elucidating how to
adopt GT to novice researchers with a practical example and add value to the literature
on GT in the LIS discipline. The author’s intent is not to describe ho w to choose a
suitable research approach nor to demonstrate her study of the blogging phenomenon.
Instead, she addresses some key problems that a new qualitative researcher who
decides to adopt a GT approach may face and provides practical suggestions to them.
2. An overview of GT
Grounded theory, “the discovery of theory from data” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967,p. 1),
was first defined by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss in their book, The Discovery of
Grounded Theory in 1967. It aims to generate theory by grounding that theory in data
rather than verify theory as traditional quantitative research does. It is widely
recognised that original theoretical underpinnings in GT were from pragmatics and
symbolic interactionism (Alvesson and Sko
¨ldberg, 2000; Corbin and Strauss, 1990;
Hutchinson, 1988; Pickard, 2007; Strauss and Corbin, 1998).
Rooted in medical sociology, GT has spread to wider practitioner fields such as
nursing, education, psychology, accounting, business management, public health,
social work and LIS over the last 40 years. In LIS field, Selde
´n (2005) traced back its
history to the early 1980s. He declared that LIS researchers in Sheffield were one of the
pioneers that employ GT in LIS (Selde
´n, 2005). A number of studies, for instance, by
Brown (1990), Soto (1992), Ellis (1993), Powell (1999), Mansourian (2006) and
Vasconcelos (2007) have importantly contributed to this tradition, primarily in fields
such as information-seeking behaviour.
No matter the discipline, GT is applicable mainly in the following cases:
.The researcher seeks to create a theory about issues of importance in people’s
lives and specifically focuses on human interaction or aims to explore new
territory (Denscombe, 2003).
.The study of new socio-technical phenomena (Ferna
´ndez, 2004).
.The area of interest is a new developing one and does not have a long, firm and
empirically based literature yet (Goulding, 1999).
According to Bailey et al. (1999) and McCallin (2003), there are six basic premises of
GT:
(1) the world is in a constant state of flux and the individuals are not all equally
placed;
(2) qualitative data analysis is basically pragmatic;
(3) the aim of qualitative analysis is to generate new concepts and theories;
(4) theories should be “grounded” in empirical reality;
(5) the researcher is open minded; and
(6) participants cannot be predicted entirely at the beginning of the research, which
affects the research design.
GT has undergone a series of variations over the past 20 years. First, it became clear
that Glaser and Strauss contributed to GT separately since the first edition in 1990 of
Strauss and Corbin’s book Basics of Qualitative Research and Glaser’s book Basics of
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