32 Facts About Grounded theory

Grounded theory is a systematic methodology that has been largely applied to qualitative research conducted by social scientists.

Study based on grounded theory is likely to begin with a question, or even just with the collection of qualitative data.

Grounded theory is a general research methodology, a way of thinking about and conceptualizing data.

Grounded theory methods were developed by two sociologists, Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss.

From its beginnings, grounded theory methods have become more prominent in fields as diverse as drama, management, manufacturing, and education.

Grounded theory combines traditions in positivist philosophy, general sociology, and, particularly, the symbolic interactionist branch of sociology.

Grounded theory recognized the importance of systematic analysis for qualitative research.

Grounded theory thus helped ensure that grounded theory require the generation of codes, categories, and properties.

Strauss had a background in symbolic interactionism, a Grounded theory that aims to understand how people interact with each other in creating symbolic worlds and how an individual's symbolic world helps to shape a person's behavior.

Grounded theory viewed individuals as "active" participants in forming their own understanding of the world.

Grounded theory provides methods for generating hypotheses from qualitative data.

Goal of the researcher employing grounded theory methods is that of generating concepts that explain the way people resolve their central concerns regardless of time and place.

Consequently, grounded theory is a general method that can use any kind of data although grounded theory is most commonly applied to qualitative data.

The grounded theory researcher goes back and forth while comparing data, constantly modifying, and sharpening the growing theory at the same time they follow the build-up schedule of grounded theory's different steps.

Theoretical codes help to develop an integrated Grounded theory by weaving fractured concepts into hypotheses that work together.

Grounded theory is less concerned with data accuracy than with generating concepts that are abstract and general.

The Grounded theory should encompass the important emergent concepts and their careful description.

Grounded theory gives the researcher freedom to generate new concepts in explaining human behavior.

Different approaches to grounded theory reflect different views on how preexisting theory should be used in research.

Glaser raised the issue of the use of a literature review to enhance the researchers' "theoretical sensitivity, " i e, their ability to identify a grounded theory that is a good fit to the data.

Grounded theory suggested that novice researchers might delay reading the literature to avoid undue influence on their handling of the qualitative data they collect.

Grounded theory encouraged a broad reading of the literature to develop theoretical sensitivity.

Grounded theory methods, according to Glaser, emphasize induction or emergence, and the individual researcher's creativity within a clear stagelike framework.

Later version of grounded theory called constructivist grounded theory, which is rooted in pragmatism and constructivist epistemology, assumes that neither data nor theories are discovered, but are constructed by researchers as a result of their interactions with the field and study participants.

Grounded theory focuses more on procedures than on the discipline to which grounded theory is applied.

Rather than being limited to a particular discipline or form of data collection, grounded theory has been found useful across multiple research areas.

Benefits of using grounded theory include ecological validity, the discovery of novel phenomena, and parsimony.

Grounded theory methods have earned their place as a standard social research methodology and have influenced researchers from varied disciplines and professions.

Grounded theory has been criticized based on the scientific idea of what a theory is.

Critics note that grounded theory fails to mitigate participant reactivity and has the potential for an investigator steeped in grounded theory to over-identify with one or more study participants.

Grounded theory was developed during an era when qualitative methods were often considered unscientific.

Such equating of most qualitative methods with grounded theory has sometimes been criticized by qualitative researchers who take different approaches to methodology .