Creswell GroundedTheory
Creswell GroundedTheory
Challenges
A phenomenology provides a deep understanding of a phenomenon as
experienced by several individuals. Knowing some common experiences
can be valuable for groups such as therapists, teachers, health personnel,
and policymakers. Phenomenology can involve a streamlined form of data
collection by including only single or multiple interviews with participants.
Using the Moustakas (1994) approach for analyzing the data helps provide
a structured approach for novice researchers. It may be too structured for
some qualitative researchers. On the other hand, phenomenology requires at
least some understanding of the broader philosophical assumptions, and
researchers should identify these assumptions in their studies. These
philosophical ideas are abstract concepts and not easily seen in a written
phenomenological study. In addition, the participants in the study need to be
carefully chosen to be individuals who have all experienced the
phenomenon in question, so that the researcher, in the end, can forge a
common understanding. Finding individuals who have all experienced the
phenomenon may be difficult given a research topic. As mentioned earlier,
bracketing personal experiences may be difficult for the researcher to
implement because interpretations of the data always incorporate the
assumptions that the researcher brings to the topic (van Manen, 1990).
Perhaps we need a new definition of epoche or bracketing, such as
suspending our understandings in a reflective move that cultivates curiosity
(LeVasseur, 2003). Thus, the researcher needs to decide how and in what
way his or her personal understandings will be introduced into the study.
Challenges
A grounded theory study challenges researchers for the following reasons.
The investigator needs to set aside, as much as possible, theoretical ideas or
notions so that the analytic, substantive theory can emerge. Despite the
evolving, inductive nature of this form of qualitative inquiry, the researcher
must recognize that this is a systematic approach to research with specific
steps in data analysis, if approached from the Corbin and Strauss (2007)
perspective. The researcher faces the difficulty of determining when
categories are saturated or when the theory is sufficiently detailed. One
strategy that might be used to move toward saturation is to use discriminant
sampling, in which the researcher gathers additional information from
individuals different from those people initially interviewed to determine if
the theory holds true for these additional participants. The researcher needs
to recognize that the primary outcome of this study is a theory with specific
components: a central phenomenon, causal conditions, strategies,
conditions and context, and consequences. These are prescribed categories
of information in the theory, so the Strauss and Corbin (1990, 1998) or
Corbin and Strauss (2007) approach may not have the flexibility desired by
some qualitative researchers. In this case, the Charmaz (2006) approach,
which is less structured and more adaptable, may be used.
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