An Emergent Method of Ground Theory for Conducting Social Research - Essay Example

 GROUNDED THEORY AND CASE STUDY Introduction An article by Kathy Charmaz entitled “Grounded Theory: Objectivist and Constructivist Methods” is a landmark work in the continuing debate on the best way to conduct social science research. In this article, she expounded and defended the ever-growing widespread use of the so-called Grounded Theory Method (GTM) against the more popular quantitative research method. Grounded Theory (now shortened only as GT) is a social science methodology that starts with its collection of data and then posits a theory after the said data collection. This is in sharp contrast with the quantitative research method that starts with a theory and then collects data to support or reject that theory. Grounded Theory or GT is a form of qualitative research which is more like a descriptive methodology rather than what the advocates of quantitative research described as the more accurate and scientific method of research using numbers as precise, systematic indicators. Grounded Theory as a qualitative form of research has many benefits and the results obtained in using GT can likewise be considered as equally valid or legitimate just like quantitative methods. Grounded Theory offers flexibility not possible with numbers alone (Charmaz, 2000, p. 510). Discussion Charmaz had posited the idea that Grounded Theory is superior when used or utilized in the conduct of social science research that basically involves people. Many areas of academic disciplines for inquiry include economics, politics, demography, sociology, history, law, and linguistics. Social science studies human behaviors, the individuals in a society, and relationships of these individuals among themselves and to the larger society. As such, it is considered that the use of numbers alone (qualitative research methodology) is not sufficient to describe people. Grounded Theory as an emergent method for conducting social research inquiries offers benefits not available with quantitative research alone. GT offers the richness of nuances that are observed when watching people, how they behave, and what their likely actions will be in future situations or events. GT as an emergent method begins with the empirical world and builds up an understanding of it as events unfold and knowledge accrues or accumulates through inductive reasoning (Charmaz, 2008, p. 155). The use of GT therefore affords the advantages of flexibility for social scientists to study their research problems in unanticipated ways and newer directions than would otherwise be possible if they used quantitative research methodology which is quite narrow and limited as to its research objectives set out at the very beginning of a research study. In other words, let their research data lead them to wherever it might lead them to. In a complex world like sociology, there are very few limits to what can be studied. The Grounded Theory is better suited to case studies with few boundaries because GT methodology offers more details, richness, completeness, and variance (more depth and higher intensity) than is possible with other methods of research. Moreover, GT lends itself to studying “development factors” that occur as a case evolves over time (Flyvbjerg, 2011, p. 301). Grounded Theory is particularly suited to the requirements of conducting a case study. It informs all the diverse areas of human activities and it is through case studies that we know the details, richness, complexity, and variances of different situations. It is through GT that we can study better the nuances of a case study because GT is not limited by the initial hypothesis as in a qualitative approach. GT can help solve the paradox of a case study being held in low regard. Additionally, it is through GT that the case study method will be better understood and appreciated by scientific researchers. This is because GT can greatly mitigate and resolve the so-called five big misunderstandings about qualitative methodology in research (Flybjerg, 2011, p. 302). These five misconceptions contributed to the low regard of case studies in research due to the wrong perception that a case study is not scientific and thereby undermine the credibility of a case study method. The case study, as aided by the use of Grounded Theory, lets people describe what is called as the “lived experience” which is hard to describe accurately if numbers are used (as in quantitative method). Living life through a lived experience is the equivalent of a reflexive awareness of something happening, of an event for example, that is very unique to the individual and it is only through descriptive or qualitative methods like GT that can adequately capture what it is like to have this specific “lived experience” and tell it to other people. It is the phenomenological experience of that sensory event or what is termed sensibility (Van Manen, 1990, p. 37) that people will know what another person went through in his own life. In this aspect, Grounded Theory offers the uniqueness of a lived experience through use of case studies that have depth. It enables the social science researchers to approximate what a person went through during a lived experience by the use of case study methods to describe that experience, in a qualitative attempt to capture and transmit information and attain full knowledge through empiricism which is what science is all about in the first place. Grounded Theory as a qualitative methodology used in research has validity and reliability because it offers predictive value based on the theory it can generate. This is exemplified by how nurses will treat classes of dying patients based on their expected social value loss (Glaser & Strauss, 1967, p. 24). Conclusion Scientific knowledge is cumulative and something new is added daily by researchers. It is how qualitative research methods like the emergent Grounded Theory that added knowledge is attained. Grounded Theory is a valid form of scientific inquiry and despite what its critics call as unsystematic, messy, amateurish, exploratory, and sloppy, it still makes valid conclusions. Most of the drawbacks and limitations existing in a purely qualitative methodology is mitigated by the flexibility of a case study based on the Grounded Theory Method. This is because GT does not limit the researcher to preconceived ideas or theories posited earlier but retains the ability to take a study to where it may lead based on the amount and type of data being collected. In this regard, a case study supported by GT can be superior especially in social science research. References Charmaz, K. (2000). Grounded theory: Objectivist and constructivist methods. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 509-535). Thousand Oaks, CA, USA: Sage Publications. Charmaz, K. (2008). Grounded theory as an emergent method. In S. N. Hesse-Biber & P. Leavy (Eds.), Handbook of emergent methods (pp. 155-172). New York, NY, USA: Guilford. Flyvbjerg, B. (2011). Case study. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (pp. 301-316), (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA, USA: Sage Publications. Glaser, B. G. & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research (pp. 21-43). Piscataway, NJ, USA: Aldine Transaction Publishers. Van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy (pp. 35-74). Ontario, Canada: The Althouse Press. Read More