Grounded theory: A method for practitioner research by educational psychologists

Abstract

From its origins during the qualitative revolution of the 1960s, grounded theory has become one of the most popular methodologies in use today. Glaser and Strauss’s (1967) book introducing the method represented a breakthrough, standing out for the systematic procedures it presented and how it countered the dominant view that quantitative research is the only valid approach to scientific inquiry.Grounded theory is a broad method, spanning contrasting ontologies but with nevertheless consistent guidelines and procedures, where the researcher avoids formulating a hypothesis in advance and instead takes a reflexive approach to prior knowledge and assumptions, focusing on the individual and how they see the world that they experience. The guidelines of grounded theory are applied as flexible tools rather than strict rules, providing a system for developing conceptual frameworks that define the relationships between categories.In grounded theory research, through the recursive processes of theoretical sensitive coding, theoretical sampling and constant comparison, data is broken down before the relationships between categories are used to construct an integrated framework which expresses the core concepts of the data, and can be used to explain or predict phenomena.This paper outlines the history and development of the method, along with the relationship between different versions of grounded theory and their epistemological and ontological positions. Grounded theory research carried out by educational psychologists and psychologists working in education will also be examined before using the author’s own experience to outline a worked example of the method.