Grounded Theory Workshop

I attended a Grounded Theory workshop on  Friday 19 March at Taylor's University College in KL.

It was jointly organized by Taylor's and Grounded Theory Institute in Mill Valley, California.

The speaker was Dr. Andy Lowe, a fellow of the Grounded Theory Institute and a personal friend of Barney Glaser, the co-founder of the original Grounded Theory.

The session covered the basics of 'What is Grounded Theory', where Dr Lowe took some time to explain the formation of Grounded Theory by Glaser and Anselm Strauss.  He spoke at some length on the background of Glaser and Strauss, and the influences toward the development of the theory.

The part that I found most useful was the practical sessions where participants were given a 10-page transcript and were given the chance to do a simple Substantive Coding exercise.

This is the area that I had been having problems trying to understand by reading articles and other material off the Internet.  I am glad we had a chance to do this as it enabled me to see the application of CODES, CONCEPTS, CATEGORIES, PROPERTIES, and INDICATORS,

It also cast some clarity on the use of THEORETICAL  SAMPLING, THEORETICAL SENSITIVITY, THEORETICAL MEMOS, and the use of the LITERATURE in Grounded Theory.

Time was limited so I cannot say that every crucial question I had going into the workshop was addressed. For instance, I wished we would have worked more on CONSTANT COMPARISON, to see how substantive data can evolve into the realm of theory, but we only saw disconnected examples. This seems to be an area of contention by GT critics, and it would have been good to see the mechanics of the EMERGENCE that is at the heart of the GT method.

There was a strong emphasis on PROCESS, not units of analysis, and EMERGENCE and not forcing of the data.

Overall though, I would say I have a much better picture now how this methodology would be applied in my project.

The workshop was presented from a strictly Glaserian perspective, which was a little unfortunate as I had some questions regarding the Straussian and the more constructivist views that were not answered. (The speaker, despite his claim of not being an evangelist of orthodox GT, appeared irritated when asked about the other GT variants so I decided not to pursue this).

At this point, I do feel that I am leaning more toward using the Glaserian model.  Aside from epistemological reasons (which gets more confusing because it is not as clear cut as it seems the more I read into this), I think that the outcome of the study is an important consideration as these approaches will yield different forms of 'theory'.

The Straussian model, with its rigid Axial Coding paradigm will result in 'description', as opposed to the abstract conceptualization of the Glaserian method.  In my blogshops project, my interest goes beyond providing a description of the blogshop phenomenon.  I would like to get into the 'why's', that is, why people make blogshops.  Thus, in my mind, I feel that a Glaserian treatment is probably more appropriate at this point.

Still, I will take a close look at Charmaz, just to be sure I know what it is all about before I make the final decision to go with Glaser.

Another important thing I picked up was the advise NOT TO USE TAPE RECORDINGS, FIELD NOTES and COMPUTER SOFTWARES.  Dr Lowe was quite adamant about this, although my understanding is that this is a matter of preference.  Still, I will have to take this advise into consideration.

He was equally adamant about short 10-15 minute interviews that are more like conversations, to get people to be more natural and truthful.  He advised doing a multiple of such short conversations.  Good idea, but I can forsee some practical problems if I am going to interview people in Singapore and West Malaysia.

Dr Lowe mentioned the need of the researcher to declare at the onset of the project, his prior-knowledge of the substantive area.  In GT, the dactum "ALL IS DATA" means that it is possible to interview yourself if you have some knowledge in the area of research, and to treat it as data for analysis and comparison.  This sounds strange, but I might just have to do this somehow.

A very significant thing I learned was the need to have THEORETICAL SENSITIVITY, which is described as being attuned to the various coding paradigms that are at the disposal of the Glaserian GT researcher to do turn substantive codes into theory.  Prior to the workshop, my understanding of theoretical sensitivity was the understanding of a wide area of the literature, but apparently, this means something else. So this will be my immediate priority.

The last item is probably the most interesting one, which is the advise to enter the field as soon as possible!  The rational is that this will guard against pre-conception of ideas and biases.  What this means to me is that I shall need to start looking into the data gathering processes as soon as possible.