Constructing Grounded Theory: A practical guide

This book takes you through a journey of constructing grounded theory by traversing basic grounded theory steps. The book will provide a path, expand your vistas, quicken your pace, and point out obstacles and opportunities along the way. We can share the journey but the adventure is yours. I will clarify grounded theory strategies and offer guidelines, examples, and suggestions throughout. Although some authors provide methodological maps to follow, I raise questions and outline strategies to indicate possible routes to take. At each phase of the research journey, your readings of your work guide your next moves. This combination of involvement and interpretation leads you to the next step. The end-point of your journey emerges from where you start, where you go, and with whom you interact, what you see and hear, and how you learn and think. In short, the finished work is a construction-yours.

P 15. Methods alone-whatever they might be-do not generate good research or astute analyses.

Initial questions. P 20 What’s happening here? (Glaser, 1978)
This question spawns looking at what is happening at either of two levels:
• What are the basic social processes?
• What are the basic social psychological processes?

P 36 -37. Elicited vs extant texts

P 46-47. Language plays a crucial role in how and what we code. Most fundamentally, the empirical world does not appear to us in some natural state apart from human experience. Rather we know the empirical world through language and the actions we take toward it. In this sense, no researcher is neutral because language confers form and meaning on observed realities. Specific use of language reflects views and values.

P. 47. Close attention to coding follows the first grounded theory mandate: Study your emerging data (Glaser, 1978).

P. 49. Glaser (1978) shows how coding with gerunds helps you detect processes and stick to the data.

P. 49. Remain open
• Stay close to the data
• Keep your codes simple and precise
• Construct short codes
• Preserve actions
• Compare data with data
• Move quickly through the data.

P. 54. constant comparative methods’

fit and relevance p. 54

P. 55. In Vivo Codes