Research Methodology
This section provides a discussion on Research Methodologies throughout the Social Sciences, Humanities, The Arts, Political Sciences, and other pertinent fields.
INtroduction
The keyword in Grounded Theory is refinement, or rather, a continuous re-calibration, of categories. To refine a developing theory, data collection and theory development develop concurrently in continuous, yet unequal symbiosis, and thus not at a similar pace. Initially, data prevails, with theory beginning to emerge, where in subsequent stages of the development, theory prevails over data. Thus the balance increasingly tips toward theory development, over grounded data, and all data collection, collection, but data is supplemented with theory throughout, as the reality of the body of knowledge, repeatedly restated, fleshed out, interpreted, and re-appropriated, takes an increasingly appropriate form.
More
Pertinent questions to ask then, in this introductory discussion on grounded theory, are many:
- To what extend do induction and deduction enter the analysis?
- When does refinement of data categories cease?
- To what extent does the researcher re-categorize the data?
- How many levels of abstraction should the research pursue?
- When is theory ‘conclusive’?
- Should the abstraction of data include a critical approach?
- How material are the categories and how does the researcher determine the materiality of these categories?