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Writing my Grounded Theory

  Writing my Grounded Theory Like in the other stages of this course, I began this stage by looking at the assigned reading. Unlike the detailed reading I did at the beginning of the other stages, however, I found it easier to use the materials in this section as references works; looking things up as needed and reading them as I went along. I began by reading Stebbins (2001) Chapter 4, which is quite general, but with lots of good suggestions that motivated me to begin the writing process. I also looked at Charmaz (2014) Chapter 11, which I found overwhelming in the amount of detail it provided. While reading it, I highlighted some points I considered salient while writing my own paper. I also read Woods (2006) Chapter 4, which intrigued me with the many creative ways that there are to present the research. Regardless, I decided to follow a more traditional format for writing my research paper since I am familiar with that form and believe it would do an excellent job of commu...
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My Grounded Theory Data Collection and Analysis

  After reading the preliminary materials in Stage 1 of the course, and having made a choice about my topic for the final project, I was eager to begin doing the research. First, however, I had to read Chapter 9 in Charmaz’(2014) Constructing Grounded Theory , which was the assigned reading for this stage of the course. This chapter was challenging as it was particularly theoretical, but as Charmaz (2014) explains, a deeper understanding of theory and an awareness of the epistemological and ontological positions researchers hold helps to strengthen our own work and to guide our assessment and understanding of other research as well. According to Charmaz, a theory “states relationships between abstract concepts and may aim for either explanation or understanding” (p.227). She explains that this general definition leads to many disagreements since it doesn’t take into account the various underlying epistemological and ontological orientations to theory. Charmaz has made it clear th...
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Thinking about Grounded Theory

I began this course with very little knowledge of grounded theory, although I had heard in the past that it wasn’t objective, rigorous or systematic enough to result in valid conclusions. However, Charmaz (2014) quickly convinced me of its value as a systematic, flexible, inductive and comparative method that encouraged exploration and resulted in theory formation. By exploring the development of the grounded theory method, Charmaz demonstrated how these methods arose to address some problems with the usual methods of research used in the social sciences that focused on verification rather than theory formation. Grounded theory methods address problems such as the fact that many theories are too abstract, speculative or unapplicable, and other situations where the data that was generated was descriptive with no analysis to tie it together. In contrast, grounded theory arises from robust data in real-world situations, and guides the development of new theories. After these readings I ...
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