Week 4 - Assignment: Create an Instructor's Presentation to Teach Students about Qualitative Research Designs

SAGE Research Methods

The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research in

Psychology

Author: Kathy Charmaz, Karen Henwood

Pub. Date: 2017

Product: SAGE Research Methods

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781526405555

Methods: Narrative research

Keywords: grounded theory, grounded theory, qualitative methods, qualitative methods, psychology,

psychology, data analysis, data analysis, coding, coding, theories, theories, data collection, data collection

Disciplines: Psychology

Access Date: January 13, 2023

Publishing Company: SAGE Publications Ltd

City: London

Online ISBN: 9781526405555

© 2017 SAGE Publications Ltd All Rights Reserved.

Grounded Theory Methods for Qualitative Psychology

Kathy Charmaz Karen Henwood

Introduction

This chapter discusses the grounded theory method and its evolution over sixty years since sociologists

Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss (1967) put forth their original statement of the method. They presented

grounded theory as consisting of flexible, successive analytic strategies to construct inductive theories from

the data. Over the past few decades, many qualitative psychologists have adopted grounded theory, as we

outline below. We draw on developments in diverse sub-fields of psychology, interdisciplinary research, to

which psychologists contribute, and selected contributions from key grounded theory researchers and re-

searcher-practitioners within allied health and social disciplines.

While our chapter is targeted at issues customarily discussed about a particular methodology and set of in-

quiry methods, we limit our historical view of the method and instead write from the perspective of the pre-

sent. We want our readers to have ready, up-to-date access to the substance, character, and developing use

of grounded theory method, and to current debates about these methods. Grounded theory, as one of us

has previously argued (Henwood and Pidgeon, 2003), is not a unitary method but a useful nodal point where

contemporary issues in qualitative social science are discussed. The method originated in sociology but has

become a general method that has informed qualitative inquiry across and between disciplines. We aim to

capture fundamentals of these discussions but because of the vast number of relevant works, our review here

is illustrative rather than exhaustive.

The Logic, Emergence and Use of Grounded Theory

Grounded Theory Logic

Grounded theory methods consist of a systematic inductive, comparative, iterative, abductive and interactive

approach to inquiry with several key strategies for conducting inquiry (Charmaz, 2006, 2014, 2015a). As

grounded theorists, we integrate and streamline data collection and analysis through making systematic com-

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parisons throughout inquiry by interacting with our data and emergent analyses. By making comparisons, we

define the properties or characteristics of our codes and categories, discern research participants’ and our

own assumptions about the studied phenomenon, make implicit meanings and actions explicit, connect our

categories, and delineate the implications of our analyses. In addition, our comparisons lead us to identify

negative cases (i.e. cases that do not fit the patterns we define in the data) and puzzling findings.

Since its inception, a major contribution of grounded theory has been its emphasis on simultaneous data

collection and analysis. The iterative process of going back and forth between data collection and analysis

prompts us to increase both the abstract level and precision of our emerging categories. We start analysing

data from the beginning of our data collection and begin building inductive theoretical analyses but do not

stop with inductive logic. Rather, we check and refine our emerging theoretical ideas about the data while

keeping these ideas grounded in data.

In this sense, grounded theory methods are abductive (Charmaz, 2014; Richardson and Kramer, 2006;

Strübing, 2007) because we rely on reasoning to account for surprising discoveries we find in the data by

entertaining all conceivable theoretical explanations of them. Then we proceed to check these explanations

empirically through further data collection – to pursue the most plausible theoretical explanation (Deely, 1990;

Peirce, 1938/1958; Rosenthal, 2004; Shank, 1998; Stainton Rogers, 2011). Thus, a strength of grounded the-

ory is that our budding conceptualisations can lead us in the most useful – perhaps a new or unanticipated –

theoretical direction to understand our data.

Both the turn away from the positivist heritage in psychology and a growing interest in constructivism make

grounded theory particularly appealing. Researchers with either objectivist or constructivist proclivities can

adopt grounded theory strategies. Like many researchers in other fields, some psychologists such as An-

drews et al. (2009) and Scull, Mbonyingabo and Kotb (2016) continue to use Strauss and Corbin's (1990,

1998) early texts to frame their studies. By now, however, numerous qualitative psychologists adopt the con-

structivist version of grounded theory (e.g. Buckingham and Brodsky, 2015; Byrne et al., 2011; Martin and

Barnard, 2013). The constructivist approach embraces reflexivity and takes positionality into account – of

the researcher's starting points and standpoints before and during inquiry, as well as the conditions shaping

the research situation, process, and product. Constructivists view data as contingent upon language, co-con-

structed with participants, and rooted in relationships and the social, cultural, historical, and situational condi-

tions of its production.

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In contrast, objectivists assume that they make discoveries in a real world separate from themselves and

develop theories whose generalisations transcend particularities. How objectivists and constructivists use

grounded theory strategies differs. As constructivists avow, grounded theory is fundamentally an interactive

and interpretive method (Charmaz, 2006, 2014). Not only do we interact with our research participants but al-

so we interact with and interpret the resulting data about them through our successive levels of analysis. We

select and use grounded theory strategies according to our interpretations of the data and assessments of

our emerging analyses of them. The entire process relies on creating these interpretations. By using ground-

ed theory methods, we learn how to raise the level of abstraction at each stage of the analytic process.

Grounded theory strategies provide ways of working with data – of seeking, interrogating, managing, and con-

ceptualising data – but how we use these methods depends on our readings of our data, repeated scrutiny of

them, and nascent analyses. Thus, grounded theory is an emergent interpretive method rather than a method

of formulaic application.

This method appeals to psychologists for four major reasons: (1) grounded theory offers a rigorous approach

to qualitative analysis; (2) it fits studying meanings of experience (Rennie and Nissim, 2015); (3) it can be

used in conjunction with numerous qualitative approaches such as phenomenological psychology (Ataria,

2014), narrative inquiry (Doucet and Mauthner, 2008; Lal et al., 2012; Rice, 2009), thematic analysis (Griffith,

2016), discursive analyses (McCreaddie and Payne, 2010), participatory action research (Andrews et al.,

2009), and varied mixed forms of qualitative analysis (Ehrlich et al., 2016; Floersch et al., 2010; Frost et al.,

2009); and (4) grounded theory is useful in mixed methods studies (Butterfield, 2009). Psychologists have

been moving away from atomised analyses of individuals and moving toward understanding the varied con-

texts in which they live. Adopting the logic of either objectivist or constructivist grounded theory furthers this

move. Researchers with both epistemological leanings find that grounded theory strategies increase their ef-

ficiency and effectiveness in gathering useful data and in constructing focused analyses. These strengths

combined with the logic and rigour of grounded theory make the method a good choice for both shaping quan-

titative tools and following up on quantitative findings in mixed method studies (e.g. Kamo et al., 2015).

Using Grounded Theory Guidelines

Grounded theory studies begin with open-ended research questions to explore but follow ideas that re-

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searchers generate once in the field (Pidgeon and Henwood, 2004). Grounded theory guidelines invoke at

least a two-phased qualitative coding that fosters analytic treatment of processes from the start. (See Box

14.1 for an outline of grounded theory guidelines.)

Box 14.1Basic Grounded Theory Methods

General Strategies

Engage in simultaneous data collection and analysis – early data analysis informs subsequent data col-

lection, which then allows the researcher to define and follow leads in the data and to refine tentative cate-

gories.

Invoke constant comparative methods – involves making comparisons at each level of analysis, including

data with data, data with codes, codes with codes, codes with categories, category with category, category

with concept. Last, we compare our constructed grounded theory with theories and studies in the relevant

literatures.

Develop emergent concepts – analyse the data by constructing successively more abstract concepts arising

from the researcher's interactions with these data and his or her interpretations of them.

Adopt an inductive-abductive logic – starts by analysing inductive cases but checks this emerging analysis

by entertaining all possible theoretical explanations and confirming or disconfirming them until the most plau-

sible theoretical interpretation of the observed data is constructed.

Specific Guidelines

Initial coding – begins data analysis early while collecting data by asking the kind of questions Glaser (1978:

57) raises: ‘What is happening in the data?’ ‘In which major process(es) are participants engaged?’ ‘What

is this data a study of?’ ‘What theoretical category does this specific datum indicate?’ and Charmaz (2014:

116) asks: ‘What does the data suggest? Pronounce? From whose point of view? We think about how our

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standpoints affect what we see, hear, and record. Throughout coding, constructivists emphasise that we bring

our meanings and language to what we define as ‘in’ the data. Subsequently, we, too, are open to scrutiny.

The researcher examines the data for its potential theoretical importance, uses gerunds to code for process-

es, and remains open to all theoretical possibilities. Codes are short, analytic, and active. Line-by-line coding

fosters scrutiny of the data and minimises forcing them into preconceived categories and extant theories. In-

terrogating each bit of data for its theoretical implications begins the move from description toward conceptual

analysis.

Focused coding – takes the most frequent and/or significant initial codes to study, sort, compare, and syn-

thesise large amounts of data. Focused codes become tentative categories to explore and analyse. Focused

coding expedites the research process.

Memo-writing – involves writing analytic notes to oneself throughout the research process to raise the analyt-

ic level of the emerging theory, identify tentative categories and their properties, define gaps in data collection,

delineate relationships between categories, and engage in reflexivity about the research process. Memos be-

come increasingly theoretical as analysis proceeds.

Theoretical sampling – entails seeking specific data to develop the properties of categories or theory, not to

achieve representative population distributions. Researchers also use theoretical sampling to learn the range

of variation of the studied category or process and to specify connections between categories.

Saturating theoretical concepts – means that gathering more data reveals no new properties of a theoreti-

cal category nor yields further insights about the emerging grounded theory.

Theoretical sorting and integrating – consists of weighing, ordering, and connecting theoretical memos (1)

to show how the theory fits together, (2) to explicate relationships between theoretical categories or between

the properties of one theoretical category, (3) to specify the conditions under which the category(ies) arises

and (4) to state the implications of the theorised relationships.

Coding defines and designates what the data indicate and are about. Traditional grounded theory coding has

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favoured examining actions and events rather than the entirety or unity of research participants’ narratives.

Initial coding opens the data to in-depth views. Line-by-line coding works well with interview and textual data.

It forces us to look at bits of data anew, dissect them, and label them. Incident-by-incident coding provides

a strong basis for making comparisons between data, particularly with intensive interview and ethnographic

data.

After engaging in initial coding, we adopt the most frequent and/or significant initial codes as focused codes

to examine large amounts of data. From the beginning, we compare datum with datum, datum with code, and

code with code in written memos, or extended notes.

Memo-writing is the pivotal analytic step between coding and writing drafts of papers. Because memo-writing

encourages us to stop and think about our data, codes, and/or emerging theory, we write them throughout the

research process. Memos may range from fleeting ideas (Strauss, 1987) to analytic statements that take a

code apart and explore its potential for development as a theoretical category (Charmaz, 2014). Memo-writ-

ing prompts us to develop our ideas about our codes and to treat significant ones as tentative categories to

explore and to check through further data-gathering. As a result, later memos are more analytic and often

serve as sections of the first draft of the research report.

After establishing some tentative categories, we conduct theoretical sampling to collect more data to fill out

the properties of a theoretical category, find variation in it, and delineate relationships between categories.

This sampling keeps the analysis grounded and makes it fit the studied phenomenon. As grounded theorists,

we presumably sample until we achieve theoretical saturation, which means that we see no new properties

of the theoretical category, its variations, or connections between categories. Criteria for saturation rest on a

researcher's claims but not all claims to saturation are merited. An analysis with several major categories that

rests on skimpy data can hardly be saturated.

After we have created a set of memos, we sort them to fit our theoretical categories and to integrate the theo-

retical framework of the analysis and then write the first draft of the report. Standard grounded theory practice

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includes creating the theoretical explication before revising the piece for a particular audience and positioning

it in the literature. These practices encourage us to develop our ideas first and then compare them with earlier

theories and studies.

In essence, grounded theory is a method of data analysis with the intent of constructing theory. Until recently

(Charmaz, 2014, 2015b; Charmaz and Belgrave, 2012; Clarke, 2005; Doucet and Mauthner, 2008; Scheibel-

hofer, 2008), grounded theorists gave scant attention to data collection and some have reduced concerns

about it to slogans such as Glaser's (2001: 145) ‘All is data'. These grounded theorists argue that the qual-

ity and quantity of data is not problematic if the analyst achieves ‘saturation’ of categories. Yet they do not

delineate useful criteria for what should constitute either viable categories or saturation. Consequently, some

grounded theory studies skimp on data collection and tout description as theory.

Emergence and Evolution of the Method

Glaser and Strauss (1967) developed qualitative inquiry by offering systematic guidelines for managing and

analysing qualitative data. They departed from mid-twentieth century conventions about conducting research

because they advocated: (1) integrating data collection and data analysis, (2) constructing theories from qual-

itative research grounded in data rather than deducing testable hypotheses from existing theories, (3) treat-

ing qualitative research as rigorous and legitimate in its own right, and (4) eschewing notions that theory-

construction belonged to an elite few. Their ideas challenged conventional positivist notions of qualitative re-

search as impressionistic, a-theoretical, and biased, and undermined traditional assumptions about academic

turf and hierarchies.

The objectivist and constructivist threads in grounded theory have their antecedents in Glaser and Strauss's

contrasting intellectual heritages. Glaser drew on his rigorous training in quantitative methods and imported

positivist assumptions of objectivity, parsimony, and generality into grounded theory. Strauss brought the

pragmatist emphases on agency, action, language and meaning, and emergence to grounded theory, all of

which support its constructivist leanings. Both Glaser and Strauss saw grounded theory as a method that fa-

cilitated studying processes.

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Since 1967, each founder took grounded theory in different directions. Glaser (1998, 2003, 2013) still adheres

to positivist principles of discovery, generality, parsimony, and objectivity and emphasises neutrality of data,

variable analysis, and an authoritative researcher. He has, however, disavowed the quest for a basic social or

social psychological process as forcing the data into a preconceived framework, rejected line-by-line coding

in favour of incident-by-incident coding, and reversed his earlier insistence that participants will tell the re-

searcher what concerns them. For over a decade, Glaser (2003) has advocated using grounded theory meth-

ods to discover how research participants resolve a main concern rather than to study processes. Glaser's

commitment to comparative methods has become more explicit over the years; his defence of small samples

has grown more strident, and his dismissal of typical methodological concerns such as attention to accuracy,

standpoints, and reflexivity has become more transparent.

Strauss (1987) moved the method toward verification and with Juliet Corbin (Strauss and Corbin, 1990, 1998),

added technical procedures that sparked Glaser's (1992) attack that their method was not grounded theory.

Strauss and Corbin's techniques made the method more formulaic because researchers could apply these

techniques to their data, rather than developing emergent ideas – and analytic strategies – from their interpre-

tations of data. Corbin (2008, 2009) has expressed regret that readers see their earlier books as rule-bound

and prescriptive. She also has redefined her perspective on inquiry in these books as dated. Corbin's (Corbin,

2009; Corbin and Strauss, 2008, 2015) recent shifts bring her closer to the constructivist approach.

Glaser's version of grounded theory remains positivist while Corbin's has become notably less so. Charmaz's

(2000, 2006, 2014) distinction between objectivist and constructivist grounded theory provides an epistemo-

logical handle for moving grounded theory out of its positivist roots and further into interpretive social science.

She adopts grounded theory strategies for coding, memo-writing, and theoretical sampling but shows how

the resulting theory is constructed rather than discovered. A constructivist grounded theory is located in time,

space, and circumstance, rather than general and separate from its origins, and aimed toward abstract un-

derstanding rather than explanation and prediction. Constructivists assume that (1) researchers are a part of

what they see, not apart from it; (2) facts and values are connected, not separate; and (3) views are multiple

and interpretive, not singular and self-evident. These assumptions lead to reflexivity about producing data,

constructing theories, and representing research participants.

Clarke (2005; Clarke et al., 2015) extends grounded theory by integrating postmodern premises in her expli-

cation of situational analysis. She rejects twentieth-century grounded theory assumptions of generality, truth,

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discovery, and objectivity in favour of situated grounded theory analyses that take into account positionality,

relativity, and reflexivity. Like numerous other scholars (e.g. Bryant, 2003, 2017; Charmaz, 1990, 2000, 2006;

Henwood and Pidgeon, 2003, 2006; Tweed and Charmaz, 2011), Clarke sees grounded theories as con-

structed, not discovered. She states that researchers already have theoretical knowledge and likely consider-

able knowledge about their substantive areas and specific research situation before entering the field. Con-

sistent with Strauss's intellectual legacy, Clarke (2005) not only constructs situational analysis from symbolic

interactionist sociology and pragmatist philosophy, but argues that symbolic interactionism and grounded the-

ory form a theory-method package in which ontology and epistemology are co-constitutive and non-fungible.

Her position (1) builds on the pragmatist agenda of empirical study of experiences and practices in obdurate,

but multiple realities; (2) assumes that perspectives on these realities, including researchers', are partial, situ-

ated, and constructed; and (3) takes the situation of inquiry as the unit of analysis. Clarke augments grounded

theory analytic strategies with maps depicting complex situations, social worlds/arenas, and positions taken

and not taken.

Grounded theory methods offer a path toward constructing theory, but not a direct route. If grounded theory

methods point the way to theorising, why do numerous grounded theory studies remain descriptive? Three

fundamental problems impede theoretical development. First, many grounded theorists do not attain the inti-

mate familiarity (Blumer, 1969) with their studied phenomenon that permits looking at it from multiple perspec-

tives and getting beneath the surface. Instead, their view remains partial and superficial. If so, they reproduce

common-sense understandings of the phenomenon (Silverman, 2013) rather than regard such understand-

ings as problematic objects of inquiry to take apart and begin to conceptualise. Subsequently, the finished

categories remain mundane, descriptive, and devoid of theoretical incisiveness. A lack of intimate familiarity

also reduces the researcher's awareness of the range of variation of the phenomenon, its reach, and connec-

tions with other phenomena and levels of analysis. Some grounded theorists (e.g. Glaser, 2003) express less

concern about limited data collection. They argue that the inherent modifiability of a grounded theory allows

extending or refining a theory later. Perhaps. But does it occur? Usually not. Thus, researchers need to aim

for thoroughness and theoretical understanding of variation.

Second, the analytic process starts with coding in grounded theory but most qualitative coding remains topi-

cal, descriptive, and general. This coding leads to synthesising, sorting, and summarising data. All are useful

but do not foster raising specific questions about the data and codes to take them apart and define what con-

stitutes them. While coding, we define points and moments in the data that suggest analytic leads or illumi-

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nate telling issues. What we do during initial analytic stages informs what we can develop later in the analytic

process.

Third, many researchers who claim grounded theory do not move back and forth between collecting data and

refining abstract categories. The logic of grounded theory calls for successively raising the level of abstrac-

tion of the analysis through interrogating it with emergent questions, filling and checking categories through

theoretical sampling, and asking which theories best account for this analysis. If a researcher's main category

is descriptive, theoretical sampling remains at a low level of abstraction and, moreover, many researchers

who claim to adopt grounded theory strategies do not conduct theoretical sampling at all. Recognition of the

problems above can prompt researchers to pose theoretical questions and pursue theoretical connections.

The Take-Up of Grounded Theory in Psychology and Emergence of Qualitative

Psychology

Why and how has grounded theory come to have a place in psychology? What role has it played in the emer-

gence of qualitative psychology? In this section, we trace grounded theory's insertion into, and influence upon,

psychology's methodological repertoire as it has expanded to include qualitative approaches and methods.

It took 20 years for grounded theory to come to psychologists’ attention; however, having done so, it rapidly

came to occupy a position in the vanguard of psychologists’ qualitative approaches and methods.

The Earliest Grounded Theory Impetus: Clinical/Practitioner Psychology

The first psychologists who took up grounded theory principles and practices did so in the late 1980s (Rennie

et al., 1988). These psychologists worked primarily in the clinical psychology (mental health) research arena,

and articulated two key areas of methodological concern: (1) the need to seek out and utilise holistic methods

for understanding and representing clients’ and research participants’ lived experiences and actions, in situ,

and in their full complexity and (2) the importance of fostering forms of theorising within psychology for those

seeking to combine their clinical/practical interests and academic research. Qualitative methods, and in par-

ticular grounded theory, were deemed to be important in both regards.

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Researchers such as Rennie et al. found themselves outside the mainstream of an academic clinical psychol-

ogy preoccupied with conducting controlled experimental studies – as was the discipline of psychology as a

whole – and with emulating the standards and practices of a laboratory-based, natural science. This situa-

tion persists to some extent, as the research concerns and priorities of academic clinical psychologists resist

change for institutional reasons. More recently, however, new demands significantly undercut, or at least in-

terrupt, traditional priorities. Clinical psychology research must now show itself to be more directly relevant to

patients’ expressed concerns, as well as applying itself to the development and evaluation of treatment regi-

mens and psychological/mental health services.

This latter situation has considerably strengthened the hand of those advocating the need for clinical (and

its later derivative, health psychology) to adopt more flexible, qualitative, and contextualised methods. They

afford a better fit between clinical psychologists’ theories and practices and the meanings their clients assign

to their experiences and problems. Hence, qualitative research methodologies and methods have gained ac-

ceptability, noticeably as part of clinical and health psychology's development in the UK and beyond. Ground-

ed theory is one of the most popular and widely well-regarded of such methods (Marks and Yardley, 2004;

Slade and Priebe, 2006) and has generated many valuable studies (e.g. Bennett et al., 2007; Horne et al.,

2012; Jacobson, 2009; Priya, 2010).

Questioning Scientific Orthodoxy, Expanding Psychological Methods: Critical

Groundwork for Grounded Theory in the UK

Interest intensified in grounded theory from the early 1990s in the UK, as part of more general arguments

for challenging scientific/methodological orthodoxy and creating a space for qualitative research within an ex-

perimentally, quantitatively and statistically defined discipline (Henwood and Nicolson, 1995). A major con-

cern was with the unnecessary narrowness of psychology's preoccupation with the control, prediction, and

measurement of human behaviour and individual cognition. Social psychologists who critiqued ideas typically

taken for granted within psychology about the practices and procedures of knowing and science (Harré and

Secord, 1972; Gergen, 1973, 1982; Parker, 1989) – and who are now often known as social constructionists

and critical psychologists (Stainton Rogers, 2011) – did the early groundwork. Proposals for an early progen-

itor of qualitative psychology, in the form of an approach called ‘ethogenic’ psychology (Harré et al., 1985),

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were also put in place. Research following this approach would analyse meaningful activity in situ, along with

participants’ everyday understandings or subjective accounts. Intelligibility and orderliness of conduct would

be established in relation to normative expectations, and its predictability by positing ‘real’ generative psy-

chological mechanisms and structures as opposed to abstract cause–effect (or in behavioural terms, stim-

ulus–response) sequences. Although ethogenic psychology never really took hold, it flagged the possibility

of psychologists refusing to privilege modernist/dualistic practices such as the measurement of behaviour

over the study of meaningful conduct and people's subjective accounts, and the use of non-objectivist inquiry

methods. In this way, it established the context of critical debate about psychological science, and prepared

the foundation for grounded theory to enter UK (and later, North American) psychology.

Grounded Theory and Qualitative Psychology

In the contributions that made grounded theory visible in the UK (and later in US psychology), Henwood and

Pidgeon (1992, 1995, 2003) argued directly for the uptake of grounded theory in psychology, as part of their

wider observation that psychology had too long neglected the potential benefits of qualitative research ap-

proaches. In making this claim, Henwood and Pidgeon echoed a major argument of critical, social construc-

tionist and ethogenic psychologists – that psychology's (dualistic) way of defining itself as an objective science

opened up serious gaps in the logic and practice of psychological science. Additionally, they pointed out how

grounded theory was a tried and tested qualitative social research method, developed within a cognate dis-

cipline (sociology), epitomising many of the real potentials qualitative research offered to psychology. Shortly

thereafter, Smith, Harré and Van Langenhove (1995) forecast the possibility of fundamentally changing the

discipline of psychology through qualitative research methods. By including Charmaz's (1995b) chapter on

grounded theory in their edited volume, they brought the method into the classroom and increased its visibility

among disciplinary colleagues.

Grounded theory offered psychologists a set of clearly articulated principles and practices for working outside

the confines of their discipline's highly prescriptive quantitative stance. This method provided an entrée into

the rigorous work of empirically gathering and analysing initially ill structured qualitative data, and of making

sense of them in theoretical terms. It opened up a no less trustworthy or valid, but far more creative and ex-

ploratory logic of inquiry than hypothetico-deductive theory and practice. It provided individual researchers

with a set of working principles and practices aimed at both ‘disciplining’ and ‘stimulating’ the theoretical imag-

ination.

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Psychologists using grounded theory could inquire into research problems with substantive relevance to spe-

cific problem domains (sometimes called ‘real world’ inquiry). As specified by grounded theory, one's primary

concern must be developing a close and meaningful understanding of a particular, substantive problem or

social arena (e.g. the involvement of patients in decisions about their care; the introduction of new technology

into a clinical setting; the management of risks in hazardous industries). Out of such understanding comes

the possibility of research knowledge of close relevance to the lives of people inhabiting such domains, and

also to the work and decisions of practitioners and policymakers dealing with problems people encounter in

their everyday worlds.

Grounded theory's specific intellectual antecedents in American pragmatist philosophy and the symbolic in-

teractionist perspective (Blumer, 1969; Mead, 1934) provided a further reason for its relevance to psychology,

and role in stimulating the development of qualitative psychology. This linkage should not be surprising since

both look back to the late-nineteenth-century psychological writings of Dilthey, who insisted that it would be

mistaken to pursue causal explanation at the expense of understanding or verstehen, and that psychological

and social investigations, alike, should ask questions about the creation of meaning. Pragmatist philosophy in-

stantiates the idea that the value of any theoretical proposition or explanatory claim depends less on testing it

against some absolute, transcendent reality, and more on considering the kinds of actions and consequences

it allows for as people encounter and negotiate their empirical world (what, as a meaningful construction, it

is ‘good for', Camic et al., 2003). Symbolic interactionism articulates a coherent justification for studying how

and why people come to attach meaning to their own and others’ conduct, other objects of experience, and

their efforts at understanding, and representation (Blumer, 1969). Symbolic interactionism takes action as a

central concern. Thus, the combination of symbolic interactionism and grounded theory creates the potential

for forging stronger links between psychology and sociology.

Grounded theory, then, provided a serious option to those psychologists who found themselves too con-

strained by psychology's traditional experimental and psychometric outlook. It posed a new mode of inquiry,

creditably located in more expansive and constructive discussions of how to pursue human inquiry. It allowed

psychologists to contemplate – many for the first time – how they might undertake exploratory research using

qualitative, real world data, and with the goal of understanding and theorising about people's lived experi-

ences and meaningful worlds, so that their research might – in the manner highlighted by Dey (2004) and

Punch (2005) – make some contribution to the ways in which people live with their daily problems. Although

ethogenic psychology tried to achieve some of these goals earlier, especially centring the study of the mean-

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ingfulness to people of their conduct and experiences in their everyday worlds, its designation as a separate

type of psychology had, perhaps, not helped to sustain it within psychology's institutional structures.

What seems to have happened in the case of grounded theory is that initial interest in, and discussion of,

grounded theory's potentials has translated into considerable demand to know ‘how to do’ psychological re-

search using the method. The demand has come from clinical and health psychology research, as already

noted, but also from social, critical, and applied psychology (see Charmaz, 2005, 2011b, 2017 for develop-

ing a critical grounded theory). The plethora of edited, introductory compilations of qualitative psychological

methods texts appearing rapidly since the earliest days almost invariably continue to dedicate a chapter to

grounded theory (e.g. Harper and Thompson, 2011; Smith, 2015; Smith et al., 1995; Wertz et al., 2011; Willig,

2001b, 2013), as have texts developed to support training in inter- and multi-disciplinary human and social

research including psychology (e.g. Silverman, 2016). Increasingly, such chapters also draw upon a body of

original research studies, a selection of which we feature to exemplify specific methodological points through-

out the remainder of this chapter.

No discussion of qualitative psychology can overlook its global reach, and with it the increasing adoption of

grounded theory methods around the world. Although early studies largely reflected methodological develop-

ments in the UK and North America, both robust studies using grounded theory (e.g. Atari, 2014; Rihacek and

Danelova, 2016; Scull et al., 2016; Tuason, 2013; Veale and Stavrou, 2007) and contributions advancing this

method (e.g. Hallberg, 2006) now appear from around the globe. Important contributions have been made

in a number of areas, including suffering and trauma. Whether or not psychologists happen to be clinicians,

they often have the privilege of being a part of breaking silences and giving research participants a space and

time for reflection to share and transcend their suffering (e.g. Priya, 2010; Rosenblatt, 1995). Priya (2010),

for example, not only constructed the categories of his analysis but also developed a research relationship

through ‘empathetic witnessing’ that supported his participants’ reaffirmation of a valued moral status.

Atari (2014) conducted 36 phenomenological interviews with Israelis who had experienced terrorist attacks

and afterward developed posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She used grounded theory to analyse their

fragmented traumatic memories. Atari aimed to learn about their subjective experience, including that of their

bodies. She argues that the fragmented bodily memory ‘functions as a black hole’ and also accounts for the

individual's feeling the traumatic experience over and over again. This type of analysis not only conceptualis-

es research participants’ stories of their experience, but also holds significant implications for practitioners.

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Approaches to Implementing Grounded Theory in Original Research Studies

One important message in introductory chapters on grounded theory as a methodology within qualitative psy-

chology concerns the do-ability of research using grounded strategies and methods. Another concern is how

researchers conduct original grounded theory over time, across a range of different sub-areas of psycholog-

ical research, and in the form of smaller and larger scale studies by single researchers (e.g. Griffith, 2016;

Lois, 2010; Priya, 2010; Tuason, 2013); students and their supervisors (e.g. Hussein and Cochrane, 2003;

Qin and Lykes 2006; Tweed and Salter, 2000); collaborative research partnerships – frequently between clin-

icians and academics (e.g. Borrill and Iljon-Foreman, 1996); and as part of funded psychological and multi-

disciplinary projects often having a medical focus (e.g. Nielsen et al., 2013; Yardley et al., 2001), although not

always (Cox et al., 2003, Eaton and Sanders, 2012; Henwood and Pidgeon, 2001).

Looking across this range of studies, grounded theory ideas and practices have now been implemented and

used in psychology, and in multidisciplinary studies involving psychology, in at least three different ways: (1)

as a methodological approach supporting research that distinctively differs from traditional quantitative, hy-

pothesis testing, experimental, psychological studies; (2) as a set of research principles and practical meth-

ods for describing, understanding and explicating substantive problems in less distinctive ways in its method-

ological approach to the quantitative, psychological mainstream; and (3) as a means of beginning an in-depth,

qualitative investigation so that inquiries produce outcomes well-grounded in data, while other complementary

approaches and methods are used to complete the theoretical explication and interpretation. This diverse set

of interests is one reason behind the continuing, robust commitment shown in the perspective and methods of

grounded theory within psychology, while consideration of these interests can illuminate debate about certain

common practices.

Grounded Theory as a ‘big Q’ Qualitative Methodology

Willig (2001a) and Stainton Rogers (2011) introduce the terms ‘big Q’ and ‘little q’ to highlight the major differ-

ences brought to the tasks of designing, executing and reporting psychological studies when working outside

the canon of hypothetico-deductive method. Willig describes the meaning of the two terms as follows: ‘“big Q”

refers to open-ended, inductive research methodologies that are concerned with theory generation and the

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exploration of meanings, whereas “little q” refers to the incorporation of non-numerical data techniques into

hypothetico-deductive designs’ (Willig, 2001a: 11). The place of grounded theory studies within this schema

is clear: they cannot be ‘little q'. Accordingly, Willig (2001a) depicts grounded theory as the first of her ‘big Q’

methodologies enabling psychologists to explore ‘lived experiences and participants’ meanings'.

In discussing the position of grounded theory within Willig's schema, characterising grounded theory as more

‘inductive’ in nature does not mean reverting to a naively dualistic way of thinking about qualitative inquiry.

Grounded theory procedures and practices are inductive in the sense of not seeking to confirm extant theory.

But, they are also much more because they involve pushing understanding forward and theorising through

intensive engagement with data, investigating its potentially varied and multiple contextual meanings, and

checking to see whether the categories hold up. Within psychology, Henwood and Pidgeon (1995, 2006)

have referred to this mode of inquiry as more ‘exploratory’ and ‘generative', and as involving a ‘flip-flop’ be-

tween data and its conceptualisation. Willig (2001a) describes the qualitative inquiry process as epitomised

by grounded theory as more ‘investigative’ in nature, always seeking to find out answers to questions, and

never merely seeking to find out whether a single hypothesis is false or true when tested against a particular

sample or quota of data.

One arena illustrating how psychologists have harnessed the exploratory/generative and questioning/inves-

tigative potential of grounded theory as ‘big Q’ psychology is critical, qualitative social psychological (specifi-

cally feminist) studies into women's life experiences and mental health (e.g. Allen, 2011; Bennett et al., 2007;

Hussein and Cochrane, 2003; Martin and Barnard, 2013). Qin and Lykes's (2006) study exemplifies this ap-

proach. They used grounded theory to construct a critical feminist analysis from 40 interviews of 20 Chinese

women graduate students about their experiences before and after coming to the US. Qin and Lykes identify

a major process that these students experienced, ‘reweaving a fragmented self', which includes three sub-

processes. First, ‘weaving self’ refers to integrating traditional Chinese values into oneself, such as the high

value placed on education, and being in a web of relationships that both sustained, yet constrained these

women. Second, ‘fragmenting self’ depicts the discomfort and disparagement these women had endured in

Chinese society and the self-questioning and critical consciousness it evoked in them. Third, ‘reweaving self',

involves reuniting the fragmented aspects of self to create a new and expanded self in the US. Yet these

women also experienced racism, poverty, isolation, and an awareness of being cast as different and other in

their host country.

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Qin and Lykes’ study illustrates grounded theory logic because they: (1) conceptualise a problematic process,

(2) define the sub-processes constituting this major process, (3) treat and analyse these sub-processes as

categories, (4) specify how the sub-processes evolve and are linked, and (5) outline the implications of their

study. Grounded theory provides strong methodological tools for such research because the constructed the-

ory is rooted in the experiences, meanings, and actions of the studied individuals.

The big Q/little q distinction encapsulates grounded theory's potential in supporting the practice of more ‘criti-

cal’ forms of applied, social and health/clinical psychology. Grounded theorists and critical psychologists’ con-

cerns overlap as both seek to introduce a freshness and newness into arenas of investigation that are not well

served by working within the parameters of normal, theory-testing, quantitative experimental science. Both

specifically question reliance upon forms of prior theorising – and also reality-defining forms of public dis-

course (e.g. Hallowell and Lawton, 2002) – that embody dominant frames and values. Grounded theory also

offers a specific set of principles and practices that can strengthen critical psychologists’ goal of understand-

ing and explicating people's own life experiences, everyday problems, and the complexity of psychological

and social processes within particular, substantive inquiry domains.

Grounded Theory Forms Outside ‘big Q’ Psychology Within Psychology and

Related Disciplines

In order to include recognisable forms of grounded theory studies lying outside the concerns and achieve-

ments of critical psychology, we now consider how social psychologists in other disciplines and practitioner-

researchers have used grounded theory methodology and method. Medical sociology and symbolic interac-

tionist social psychology have had a long and vibrant history of grounded theory studies (e.g. Corbin and

Strauss, 1988; Charmaz, 1991, 1995a, 2011a). These areas share overlapping interests with psychologists

as evidenced in the work of Charmaz and Lois, which we discuss in greater detail.

In a demonstration project (Wertz et al., 2011) illustrating five different ways of doing qualitative analysis in

psychology with the same data, Charmaz (2011a) shows how grounded theory strategies lead to substantive

theorising. The primary data consisted of two young women's personal accounts of an unfortunate event and

subsequent interviews of them (although Charmaz also made comparisons with her own data). Teresa, who

had aspired to becoming a professional opera singer, wrote about her experience of losing her voice after

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having surgery for anaplastic cancer of her throat. Gail wrote about injuring her arm just after she had made

the gymnastics team at her college.

Charmaz begins with broad sensitising concepts such as identity and meaning, and explores possible con-

nections with time. Her initial codes include ‘voice and self merge', ‘defining certain impairment', and ‘experi-

encing forced loss'. Two major processes emerged through the analysis, losing and regaining a valued self.

Charmaz focused the analysis on effecting intentional reconstruction of self after loss and distinguished be-

tween losing a valued self in a context of an uncertain future and experiencing a disrupted self with certain

recovery. Conditions of uncertainty and awareness of permanent loss profoundly affect a person's meanings

and actions. Under these conditions, regaining a valued self depended on facing loss, relinquishing the past

self, drawing on lessons from the past, and realigning one's earlier dream with the present situation. Charmaz

constructed her analysis from the perspectives and experiences of the studied individuals. Grounded theory

provides a lens for seeing beyond established professional concepts rather than only seeing through them.

Jennifer Lois's (2010) study of homeschooling mothers is an exemplar of grounded theory research, reason-

ing, and theorising. Consistent with Barney Glaser's question about what kind of study does the data indicate,

Lois discovered that her data led her in an unexpected direction. She began her research with an interest in

the emotion work of homeschooling mothers and thought she had a study of domestic labor. As she proceed-

ed, she discovered that the inordinate amount of time that homeschooling took was a crucial issue for these

mothers.

Conceptions of the quantity of time devoted to homeschooling and the emotion work involved could not ac-

count for all of Lois's data. She imparts what can be transformative methodological advice when she says:

‘You should keep coming back to the quotes that won't leave you alone’ (in Charmaz, 2014: 194). One home-

schooling mother of 12 children told Lois that being around children all day was not easy, and acknowledged

that she could send them off to school. This mother stated, ‘But what else was I going to do with my time?

Hey, I could sit down and watch soap operas in the afternoon, but what better thing to do than to give it to

your children?'

Lois sensed that the quote above was significant and defined it as unresolved data for which she needed

to theoretically account. She followed abductive reasoning (Peirce, 1938/1958) to account for the puzzling

finding. Lois sought more data to explore the meanings of such statements. When she examined these data

she realised that her questions about mothers’ quantity of time had only touched the surface of their temporal

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experiences (in Charmaz, 2014: 196).

After identifying ‘Subjective sense of time’ as a major theme in her data, Lois searched existing theoretical

understandings about it. Was she theoretically contaminated by the literature in this field? No. In keeping with

Henwood and Pidgeon's (2003) concept of theoretical agnosticism, Lois maintained a critical view of the liter-

ature and an open eye on her data. She used ideas from the literature to sensitise her to possible meanings

of time. Yet she was consistently informed by her data and her emerging analysis of them and constructed

the category, ‘time sacrifice'.

Many grounded theorists would have stopped with this category. One could rather easily define what time-

sacrifice meant in the data, spell out its properties, show how the mothers became immersed in it, explain

how it occurred, and outline its consequences. Such an analysis would produce a competent paper. But Lois

did much more.

Instead of simply producing an analysis about time sacrifice, Lois built on both the extant literature and her

data. She conducted some new interviews with focused questions to explore time sacrifice. How did Lois ac-

count for her findings? She realised that the mothers’ daily temporal experiences and their meanings of them

not only resulted in their ‘manipulating temporal experience to manage their selves, but also to manage their

emotions’ (in Charmaz, 2014: 196). Their meanings and actions resulted in a particular type of construction

of self, the sacrificial mother. This conception of self reduced the women's resentments about having no time

and alleviated feeling guilty for wanting time for themselves.

Lois then developed new codes, ‘Subjective Experience of Time', ‘Time Management', ‘Manipulating Emo-

tions to Manage Time', ‘Manipulating Time to Manage Emotions’ and explored them further in follow-up in-

terviews. Her work produced another code, ‘Temporal Emotion Work'. Subsequently, she investigated this

code more deeply by going back to the data and creating new codes: ‘Sequencing: Eliciting Nostalgia and

Anticipating Regret’ and ‘Savouring: Staying Present and Creating Quality Time'. Sequencing referred to the

mothers’ efforts to create good memories of the family's child-raising years and their fears of future regrets if

they had not created these memories. Savouring meant treasuring present moments while using time to craft

valued experiences.

These codes are intriguing, but what Lois did with them is more compelling. In her article, Lois posits a sub-

class of emotions, ‘temporal emotions', that can only be felt by crossing ‘timeframes’ demarking the past,

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present, and future (Charmaz, 1991). Lois claims that temporal emotions cannot be felt without bridging the

timeframe of the present with the timeframes of the past or future. The emotions of nostalgia, regret, disil-

lusionment, ambition, hope, optimism, and dread cannot be experienced without bridging the present to the

past or future. Lois concludes her grounded theory by pointing out that how we use temporal emotions signif-

icantly affects constructing a continuous self over time.

Lois's analysis underscores the significance of using grounded theory strategies to develop a successively

more conceptual analysis. She engaged in the iterative process by going back and forth between her data

and analysis. She sought additional data when her already collected data could not support her emerging

analysis. She constructed focused questions to gather just enough new data to fill out her codes and tentative

categories. By invoking abductive reasoning Lois developed a theoretical account of elusive data. Note that

her codes reflect specific meanings and actions. Yet through studying these codes, and interrogating her da-

ta, Lois created an abstract general category: temporal emotions. In short, Lois's sequential coding and suc-

cessive analyses led to a highly theoretical and innovative contribution.

Both Charmaz and Lois conducted a close coding in precise terms that aimed to capture, compare, and ex-

plicate specific meanings and actions in their interviews. Both researchers compared datum with datum, data

with codes and categories, and categories with categories. Throughout the process, they asked analytic ques-

tions. By successively working from specific codes to general, but definitive, categories, they construct the-

oretical analyses. Thus, the way constructivist grounded theorists code their data and raise questions about

them, as well as probe their emerging analyses, can resolve criticisms of grounded theory studies being de-

scriptive.

Charmaz also uses grounded theory strategies to plumb ordinary meanings in her data and makes them ob-

jects of study, such as ‘living one day at a time’ (1991), ‘making trade-offs’ (1991) and ‘making a comeback’

(2011a). This strategy simultaneously fosters remaining open and curious about studied life, learning the logic

of research participants’ worlds, and minimises importing disciplinary concepts that contain imputed judg-

ments, whether of participants’ motivations or their worlds.

Grounded Theory in Practice-Oriented Research

In health and clinical psychology, grounded theory enables researchers to pay close attention to articulating

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the categories of experience and meaning that make up people's subjective/phenomenal worlds. This ap-

proach is both a major objective and an inextricable part of studying the social and psychological problems,

questions and issues under investigation – often concerning dynamic social psychological processes.

Byrne, Orange and Ward-Griffin (2011), for example, explored caregiving spouses’ responses to care transi-

tions after their partners were discharged from a geriatric rehabilitation unit. Byrne conducted interviews with-

in two days before the partners’ discharge, two weeks after discharge, and 4–6 weeks post-discharge. They

defined ‘reconciling in response to fluctuating needs’ as the fundamental process the caregivers experienced.

Caregivers had to reconcile the disjuncture and dissonance between their past and present lives. Reconcil-

ing included three sub-processes ‘navigating', ‘safekeeping', and ‘repositioning', and showed how caregivers

responded to their spouses’ changing needs, as well as their own and those of being a couple. The authors

delineated the contexts of reconciling as occurring in three phases ‘getting ready', ‘getting into it', and ‘getting

on with it'. Their study not only illuminates caregivers’ experience but also hold implications for health policy

and practice.

The usefulness of grounded theory studies for policy and practice is apparent in numerous areas. Health

psychologists Ray Chilton and Renata Pires-Yfantouda's (2015) constructivist grounded theory explores what

adolescents with type 1 diabetes confront in managing their care. As a result Chilton and Pires-Yfantouda pro-

duce an insightful conceptual framework for understanding and conceptualising these adolescents’ psycho-

logical mechanisms and contextualising them in a self-management continuum. The authors carefully qualify

their results by explaining that restricted access to only those participants who agreed to be interviewed pre-

cluded theoretical sampling. Nonetheless, they developed an analysis that can inform practitioners’ treatment

plans.

The rippling effects of the past are taken up by psychologists who use grounded theory to address clinical

problems. Matthews and Salazar (2014) studied second-generation adults who were raised in religious cults.

One of these researchers had been a second-generation cult member for 43 years while living in three coun-

tries. This researcher had both an insider and outsider view, as she is no longer a part of the cult. These

authors distilled the themes in their data and used them to draw out specific implications for practicing coun-

sellors.

Williams, King, and Fox (2016) also constructed sensitive recommendations following their in-depth study of

people with a lifetime history of anorexia nervosa. They learned and analysed how anorexia nervosa comes

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to become a part of the person's self. These authors spell out specific points for practitioners to attend to and

outline the kind of therapeutic interventions needed. They present a persuasive argument that practitioners

must aim to disentangle the person's self from anorexia nervosa to recover from the disorder, rather than fo-

cusing primarily on weight.

In a study that recasts practitioners’ definitions, Wright and Kirby (1999) sought to clarify and explicate the in

vivo/in situ categories of experience and meaning of ‘adjustment’ to chronic illness relevant in the lives and

worlds of people suffering end stage renal failure (ESRF), as a strategy to overcome poor conceptualisation

of the term in a research literature dominated by notions of adjustment as ‘a return to normal social roles

(e.g. work), an absence of psychiatric caseness (e.g. on depression) or compliance/adherence with treatment’

(Wright and Kirby, 1999: 259).

Clearly, for certain research purposes, and following some of the general principles of qualitative inquiry (e.g.

Lincoln and Guba, 1985), charting or mapping out such categories of experience and meaning in more depth

and detail than is possible in other forms of research aiming to count occurrences of events and establish

general patterns, can be a valid research goal in and of itself. To an extent, this can also be the case, in

grounded theory studies, when reporting early ‘descriptive’ stages of a project. In addition, providing a de-

tailed description can be a primary means for researchers to demonstrate that they have, indeed, ‘grounded’

any subsequent theoretical abstractions in a solid foundation of data and have grappled with making sense of

them. Nonetheless, grounded theory studies that report primarily descriptive findings have elicited criticisms

from numerous different perspectives.

In the case of psychology, three main criticisms have arisen: (1) merely presenting the details and structure of

experience does not amount to articulating a theory (a criticism that possibly insists on only using a complete

version or a single ‘true’ definition of grounded theory); (2) arriving at categories of meaning and experience

does not articulate or interpret their psychological meaning from the perspective of individual actors; and (3)

simply reporting categories of experience and meaning does not provide an analysis of social dynamics or

process, nor does it answer specific questions about or explore the theoretical and practical implications of

the data (e.g. Willig, 2001b). From a sociological point of view, the weakness of such descriptive grounded

theory studies lies in their reliance on a loose presentation of themes derived from the data in the manner

of abstract empiricism, as if the data merely speak for themselves, and where the researcher fails to provide

any analytical framing or reading of the data (Silverman, 2013). These criticisms may point out weak areas in

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specific studies for which the authors have claimed to use grounded theory. However, these criticisms do not

apply to the method per se. Nor do the criticisms argue against researchers varying in how they balance de-

mands for detailed description and analytical/theoretical explications of participants’ experiences and mean-

ings.

Researchers who aim to use this method for theory construction need to develop ‘theoretical sensitivity’

(Glaser, 1978), the ability to discern and interrogate possibilities for conceptualising the data in abstract terms.

Hence, these researchers create codes – and from them, categories – that carry analytic weight. From the

early stages of analysis to the final report, the work becomes increasingly theoretically driven by the emerging

analysis.

A notably different manifestation of grounded theory practice occurs when the method is no longer treated as

a distinctively descriptive and analytical, open-ended/exploratory and investigative, creative/generative and

exhaustive/rigorous mode of inquiry, but rather as a stage in an overall research process adopting a verifica-

tionist approach to method. For example, Michie et al. (1996: 455–456), studied family members attending

a clinic for those at high risk of inheriting bowel cancer. They used grounded theory data analysis methods

with interview data as a ‘pilot study’ to generate hypotheses about how people respond to predictive genetic

testing ‘to be tested in a prospective, wider scale, quantitative study'. Yardley, Sharples, Beech and Lewith

(2001) used grounded theory, in an interview study of people receiving chiropractic treatment for back pain,

as a starting point for a more complex, evolving, multi-phased design, shifting from an exploratory/genera-

tive to a verificationist study. They aimed to ascertain whether it was (dynamic) symptom perceptions, other

factors (such as abstract illness representations and/or communication by and confidence in the therapist) or

a combination of factors that influenced treatment perceptions and acceptability. These studies point to the

continuing pull of discrete variable analysis and generalist hypothesis testing within clinical research, while

also highlighting the valued (if, in its own terms, limited) role played by grounded theory within it.

Grounded Theory Used in Combination with Other Approaches to Achieve

Theoretical Explication and Interpretation

A further variation in the implementation of grounded theory within psychology is its use in combination with

other approaches. Studies in this mould clearly depart from the idea of grounded theory being a standard-

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ised package, conceiving of it instead as part of a flexible toolkit of methods. Interest has emerged in social

science internationally in developing principled and practical forms of ‘methodological combining’ – interest

that further encourage researchers not to think of methods as hermetically sealed (e.g. Henwood and Lang,

2005; Moran-Ellis, 2006; Tashakkori and Teddlie, 2000; Todd et al., 2004). Within qualitative psychology, in

fact, investigators have always made decisions and choices about methodology and method in the light of

a broadening comparative, possibly critical, awareness and understanding of a range of qualitative perspec-

tives and methods with first ‘homes’ within and beyond psychology (e.g. discourse analysis, ethnography,

phenomenological theory and method, voice relational psychology).

Grounded theory and discourse analysis have been used as co-contributors as psychologists have worked

across methodological boundaries. In their investigation into how men's sense of masculinity is implicated in

their involvement in crime, Willott and Griffin (1999: 449) used grounded theory tactics to identify a stratum

of in vivo codes (e.g. earning, money, and the family) in the form of ‘words and phrases used repeatedly by

discussants'. These codes were then used ‘to divide the huge quantity of data into manageable pieces, be-

fore moving onto the more theoretical phase of the analysis’ (Willott and Griffin, 1999: 449). At this phase,

the researchers began to attach greater significance to ideas and practices from discourse theory: focusing

in particular on how men positioned themselves in their accounts and arguments, and cultural discourses of

gender, masculinity and criminality.

Typically, techniques for achieving theoretical abstraction, integration and explication in grounded theory stud-

ies are through the constant comparative method, Strauss and Corbin's three-Cs coding framework, Glaser's

integrating families of theoretical codes, and Charmaz's theoretically sensitive interaction with and interpreta-

tions of data – which is perhaps the culmination of grounded theorists’ aim to pay constant attention from the

onset to theoretical possibilities in the data. In the two cited exemplar studies above, the authors built upon

a range of ideas drawn from theory and the extant literature, to assist them in interpreting, integrating, and

explicating the meanings in their data.

Conclusion

In summary, grounded theory studies in psychology attest to the strength of the method for producing fresh

ideas and challenging past truths. The rapid acceptance and ascendance of the method in the discipline

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confirm its usefulness in developing qualitative psychology. Like other scholars, perhaps psychologists first

adopted grounded theory as a method of managing data and engaging in substantive coding. Yet grounded

theory offers much more than coding strategies and data management. Raising the analytic level of initial

coding practices is a start. Psychologists can enjoy a privileged place of access to people's concerns and

experience and a sensitivity to felt meanings. Grounded theory gives these psychologists tools to treat them

analytically in ways that ultimately afford individuals new ways of understanding their experience.

For academic as well as clinical psychologists, creating increasingly more theoretical memos advances the

analytic process and can spark reflexivity about it. Engaging in theoretical sampling to sharpen abstract cate-

gories and to dig deeper into the phenomena also enhances clarity and precision. The potential of grounded

theory's constant comparative method has yet to be mined as fully as it might be for constructing persuasive

critical analyses to effect change. Taken to its logical extension, grounded theory holds much promise for new

theorising in psychology, for critical inquiry within the discipline, and for innovative links between academic

ideas and clinical practice.

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