Qualitative Research: Grounded Theorising,

Analytic Induction, or What?

Martyn HammersleyKurt Andersen

The Open University

NCRM Research Methods Festival 2008

What is the Goal and Logic of Qualitative Research?

• Description versus explanation/theory-building.

• Rigour versus creativity?

Grounded Theorising

• There are different interpretations of GT: Glaser, Strauss, Schatzman, Charmaz, Clarke, and others.

• The Discovery of Grounded Theory as a reaction against armchair theorising and hypothesis-testing research.

• But also against descriptive qualitative studies using implicit and unsystematic comparisons.

The Guiding Orientation

• Task of sociological research = producing empirically applicable theories.

• This can only be achieved by systematically developing theoretical ideas from empirical data.

• At the start, theoretical preconceptions should be minimised.

An iterative relationship between data collection and analysis.

• Initially, open-ended data collection and open coding of the data, generating as many theoretical ideas as possible.

• Emergent theory should guide subsequent data collection through theoretical sampling

• Analytic coding of data should progressively become more selective, focusing on the development of a dense, integrated theory.

Theoretical Sampling and Theory Development

• A classic example from Glaser and Strauss: awareness contexts and death in the hospital.

Sampling Across Awareness Contexts• Situation where there was little patient

awareness: premature baby ward and neurosurgical ward where patients were frequently comatose.

• Situation where staff’s and often patients’ expectations of death were high and dying was quick: an intensive care unit

• Situation where dying was slow and staff expectations about patients’ dying were high, but patients’ own expectations might not be: cancer service.

• Situation where death was unexpected and rapid: emergency service.

Typology of Awareness Contexts

PAT IENT STAFF Knows Pretends not

to know Suspects Doesn’t

know Know Open Pretence Suspicion Closed Pretend not to know

Suspect Don’t know

Criticisms• Inductivist neglect of the guiding role of

theory? Later distortion of the true spirit of Grounded Theorising?

• What about theory testing?• A false realism and underdeveloped

constructionism?• Are grounded theories really theories?• Theoretical saturation as an arbitrary

stopping point.• Lack of interpretative depth?

Analytic Induction

• Different interpretations of AI.

• A history: Aristotle, Bacon and Mill.

• The reaction against quantitative method within US sociology, during the first half of the 20th century: Znaniecki and Lindesmith.

The Process of Analytic Induction

Define/Redefine Phenomenon

Study cases of phenomenon

Formulate/ReformulateHypotheses

Study more cases

Need toRedefine

Phenomenon?

No

Do all the casesfit the hypothesis?

NoSTOP

Yes

Yes

START

A Classic Example: Cressey on Embezzlement

• From embezzlement to financial trust violation (FTV).

• The final theory: FTV occurs when people in positions of financial trust have a financial problem that is non-shareable, believe that this can be resolved by secret FTV, and can rationalise this, eg as ‘borrowing’.

Features of Analytic Induction

• Aimed at producing explanatory theory.

• Concerned with how component variables relate to one another, not with relative contributions of variables.

• Recognises that it may be necessary to redefine what is being explained.

• Identifies causal relations within semi-closed systems.

Criticisms of Analytic Induction

• Neglects the importance of theoretical implication.

• Fails to investigate situations where identified conditions hold.

• Focuses on deterministic relations, but are causal relations in the social world probabilistic?

• Requires large number of cases to be investigated in detail.

Or What?