Phd thesis using grounded theory

Phd thesis using grounded theory

A grounded theory study of educational psychologists’ mental health casework in schools. Maria Evrydiki Zafeiriou Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Applied Educational Psychology May This paper seeks to guide doctoral students who consider using Grounded Theory for their stud-ies. It provides a focused critique of Grounded Theory, which can guide their decision to employ it as a research method. More importantly, this paper details and explains the steps doctoral re- admitted to hospital for surgery, from their perspective. A constructivist grounded theory approach was used that incorporated flexible, child centred research techniques including interviews and the ‘draw and write technique’. This thesis presents a substantive theory: children’s reframing of their sense of selves

Grounded theory and the PhD – notes for novice researchers | Emerald Insight

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Need an account? Click here to sign up. Download Free PDF. methodology: Grounded Theory. Thesis example. Hilary Engward. Download PDF Download Full PDF Phd thesis using grounded theory This paper. A short summary of this paper. Dr Hilary Engward Grounded Theory Thesis Methodology exemplar The purpose of this chapter is to build your case as to why grounded theory is best methodology to inquire into your research purpose. It has a number of features to cover: 1.

It needs to explain what types of methods have been used by others to explore similar type research purposes, and build the case as to why these are not the most ideal to inquire into YOUR research purpose 2. It needs to present a comprehensive and concise overview about what grounded theory is. To do this you must demonstrate understanding of: a. The epistemological purpose of grounded theory research and how it differs to other inductive methodologies b.

Different types of grounded theory methodologies and a justification of which best suits your research purpose. Once phd thesis using grounded theory have chosen, then stick to this particular formulation and do not deviate. The process of doing grounded theory research in relation to the grounded theory tradition you have selected.

Firstly, that different discourses of health care ethics contain differing ways of framing and focusing knowledge of health care ethics.

Secondly, that the implications of pre-framing and pre-focusing knowledge is that knowledge generation is grounded within a priori disciplinary preconception and ideas about what health care ethics ought to be about. Thirdly, that social scientific methods of inquiry into health care ethics enables a better analysis and understanding of social processes that focus and frame health care ethics.

This involves asking about how matters become an ethical concern, how they are attached to particular forms of activity, what ideologies and knowledge has arisen around this activity. These three themes are important in how we understand the education of health care ethics because different discourses about health care ethics contain differing ideas about how to understand and inquire into health care ethics, which contain both implicit and explicit ideas and values about its purpose Gerwitz and Cribb, Empirical work into health care ethics is a useful means to explore and reduce the gap between academic ideas about ethics and the practical experience of lived ethics Gerwitz and Cribb, Importantly it can provide a richer and more relevant account of ethics that does more than simply add to academic thought.

The value of empirically informed ethics therefore is to provide a richer naturalistic ethics, and one that leads to a more relevant thinking about health care ethics that is not pre- framed within a priori assumption.

The purpose of this chapter is two-fold, phd thesis using grounded theory. Firstly, it is to discuss in more detail the value of using empirical research in inquiry into health care ethics, and secondly to justify the selection of grounded theory methodology as being the most appropriate methodology to this inquiry.

Dr Hilary Engward Grounded Theory Thesis Methodology exemplar EMPIRICAL RESEARCH INTO HEALTH CARE ETHICS Empirical inquiry into the concepts of ethics is a developing, but not new field Sugarman, Pearlman, and Taylor, Quint found practices of information control in order to prevent patients from knowing their diagnoses, phd thesis using grounded theory.

Anspach found that poor decision-making in bioethics mapped onto how ethical problems developed over time in neonatal units, and Zussman found that the ethical concerns of bioethicists had little impact on the daily work of staff in intensive care units. Chambliss forwards a social organisation of ethics in which nursing ethics is presented as a power struggle between nursing and medical staff, with nursing the less powerful using the moral argument as a means of achieving control, phd thesis using grounded theory.

Chambliss concluded that ethical problems are structurally created within organisations and it is the social context in which ethical questions are formed. However variance as to how to do empirical ethics has led to empirical ethics being questioned by both philosophers and social scientists, phd thesis using grounded theory.

There have also been several attempts to categorize types of empirical ethics. One of the first authors in the field, Hopesuggested six ways and Sugarman and Sulmasy listed eight approaches to using empirical work in ethics1. Jacoby and Siminoff provide a useful means of grouping empirical work into four types, as follows. These studies seek to define current practices, opinions, beliefs, can be descriptive or 1 Debate as to the purpose of empirical ethics, and the role of empirical ethicists has been debated in the thematic issues of The American Journal of Bioethics and Bioethics have dedicated thematic issues to empirical ethics.

In the former Kon constructed four categories phd thesis using grounded theory in the latter, Molewijk,Stiggelbout and Ottem et al. Dr Hilary Engward Grounded Theory Thesis Methodology exemplar explanatory in nature, and may or may not be hypothesis-driven and set the stage for further research and direct efforts in improving care.

This includes looking at attitudes from different perspectives e. nurses, physicians, patients, phd thesis using grounded theory, and families and laying the groundwork for future inquiry, assessing projects designed to bring these perspectives in line with one another, the efficacy of phd thesis using grounded theory care programmes, and studies that seek knowledge that might help people who need to make difficult choices.

This type of research demonstrates that the reality of practice does not always match the theoretical ideal and identifies gaps between ethical ideals and the reality of health care. For example, research into medical error found that providers often fail to disclose errors to patients Gallagher, Waterman and Garbutt. The third approach of empirical inquiry considers how to bring practice closer in line with ethical ideals.

Whilst much work has focused on the first two types of research, there is relatively little research into the effects of potential solutions. This type of research builds on previous work, designing and testing methods to help professionals care for patients in ways that are more consistent with ethical norms. For example, Dixon-Woods et al, phd thesis using grounded theory. The final approach integrates social science data into health care ethics Haimes, ; Hedgecoe, This fourth type builds on the work of the previous three types of research through systematic analysis of multiple empirical publications to form the basis of an argument to change an ethical norm.

These approaches to empirical inquiry each have a phd thesis using grounded theory in the understanding of health care ethics, but importantly, they address the difference between phd thesis using grounded theory theoretically constructed ethics and the ethics as lived. There is some conflict however, as to whether empirical research can only descriptively illuminate current practice and not inform normative ethics in a meaningful sense.

This makes social science inquiry subservient to normative ethics because the research is phd thesis using grounded theory to provide data for the ethicists to use Zussman, In this sense, empirical research functions to support predetermined philosophical argument, leading to the claim that empirical ethics is the handmaiden of philosophy Haimes, Others assert that empirical inquiry into the concepts of health care ethics does have significant implications for refining ethical norms, phd thesis using grounded theory.

Turner a argues that there should be inquiry into the subject of bioethics, phd thesis using grounded theory, but that there can also be some inter-disciplinarity between philosophers and empiricists in order to develop a more responsive and considered health care ethics. Alternatively, De Vries calls for a distinctive empirical base from which the concept of health care ethics is the object of scrutiny. Evans further argues that inquiry into health care ethics should be distinct from its normative base.

Evans identifies two types of rationalisation of bioethical evidence; a thin rationalisation which asks what a doctor or a patient would do in a similar situation given the universal ends of for example the four principles, as often found in the more descriptive lay of the land type studies, or a thick rationalisation based on values and heterogeneity which are publicly debatable. Evans argues that there are few studies that aim for a thick rationalisation because research methodology is bound within pre-conceived frameworks, which in turn reproduces and validates that particular framework.

To explain the relationship between empirical and theoretical ethics, Dunn and Sheehan et al, phd thesis using grounded theory. To be convincing, a recommended course of action cannot be presumed to be right on this account alone but must also be prescriptive, or recommend some course of action.

This is done using a number of strategies; if a quantitative approach is used, a claim can be made about the majority view, and arguments held by a majority or minority using statistical analysis and generalization of findings can be documented, phd thesis using grounded theory. These strategies of convincingness are bound within the epistemological foundations of the methodologies developed to validate empirically derived arguments.

This internal methodological validity can be identified in the strategies, or frameworks of inquiry, used in the empirically driven accounts of empirical ethics.

Attempts to convince the audiences of the persuasiveness of these arguments might include claims about the generalisability or representativeness of the data, phd thesis using grounded theory, the use of techniques to ensure analytic rigour and the management of subjectivity and the constructed nature of social reality through reflexive research methods.

Dunn and Sheehan et al. It is therefore important to consider both the disciplinary foundations and research lens through which knowledge generation about health care ethics is conducted, and to expose a priori assumption that the lens casts upon the process of knowledge generation. The value of empirical research should rather be based on methodological appropriateness and rigour rather than the disciplinary affiliation of the researcher.

This requires the researcher to be open about any a priori disciplinary or empirical assumptions and preconceptions, and to select the most appropriate methodology that best provides the tools to inquire into the research phenomena. The remainder of this chapter therefore seeks to provide a more practical narrative about potential preconceptions in relation to the purpose of the research and my role as the researcher.

Generally, phd thesis using grounded theory, assumptions that guide the research process fall into paradigms a set of ideas about how we might study and explain the world. Denzin and Lincoln identify five paradigms within which the generation of research and knowledge operates; positivism, phd thesis using grounded theory, interpretivism, realism, post-positivism and critical realist.

These terms are used primarily by methodologists and social theorists to describe and evaluate the theoretical assumptions underlying different approaches to research, but in research practice, they are not always distinctly divided, and few researchers describe themselves as being only a positivist, interpretivist or realist researcher Denzin and Lincoln, Many studies use a combination of positivist, interpretivist and realist phd thesis using grounded theory, and generally produce either qualitative or quantitative data.

Quantitative inquiry sits within the positivist tradition, is objectivist in its ontology and seeks meanings that are deductive and objective Bryman, Qualitative inquiry sits within the interpretive tradition which views social phenomena as socially constructed and research in this paradigm is concerned with understanding phenomena through the meanings people attach to experiences Greenhalgh, The ontology and epistemology accepted in this research assumes that knowledge is not static, but as emergent and transforming.

It is accepted that for research to be relevant, researchers should use methods that conceptually explain what is going on in the substantive context. Grounded theory, Glaser and Strauss,provides a methodology that enables concerns of social participants to emerge in context Charmaz, and Goulding, and is therefore useful for studying topics of a social nature, phd thesis using grounded theory. Dr Hilary Engward Grounded Theory Thesis Methodology exemplar GROUNDED THEORY A central premise to this inquiry is that there is a need to question how knowledge about health care ethics is conveyed.

Underpinning this is the assumption that disciplinary knowledge is bound within a priori assumption about that knowledge. It is important therefore to identify a methodology that is not wholly pre-framed and which allows evidence to emerge without being pre-defined by the discipline, research paradigm or researcher. Grounded theory provides a methodology that uses method which is not pre-bound within epistemological or disciplinary pre-conceptions.

It is a methodology that allows for patterns in the data to explain the research question. This is important to this research because phd thesis using grounded theory purpose is to explore how academics convey understandings of health care ethics. Grounded theory is an inductive methodology that systematically collects and analyses data in order to generate theory about patterns of human behaviour in social contexts.

The value of this methodology is that it steps back from preconceived disciplinary values and known paradigms by taking a neutral view of behaviour in a substantive context Simmons, The methodology does not attempt to understand social phenomena as the individual participants in that social phenomena see it, phd thesis using grounded theory, but rather it uncovers patterns in their experiences.

The focus of grounded theory methodology is on social processes or actions, by asking about what happens and how people interact in the social context, it seeks to uncover patterns in social life that participants might or might not be aware of. This makes the data the focus of analysis, which is analysed to illuminate patterns and social process in that data that explains the research question.

As such, it is a methodology that develops data from simple description through to conceptualisation in order to explain the social phenomena in question. It is therefore a practical pattern finding method that reduces interpretation phd thesis using grounded theory an a priori theoretical framework or the subjective interpretation of the researcher.

Because of these features, grounded theory methodology is useful to address the critique that empirical inquiry is descriptive and subservient to philosophically driven inquiry, or that empirical inquiry is theoretically bound within preconceived ideas about the phenomena, either through the lens of the research framework or the researcher, phd thesis using grounded theory.

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(PDF) methodology: Grounded Theory. Thesis example. | Hilary Engward - blogger.com

Constructivist grounded theory was rooted in pragmatism and relativist epistemology. It assumes that theories are co-constructions by the researcher and his participants, as a result of their interactions in the field (Charmaz, , ). This study employed qualitative analysis using constructivist grounded theory. Data was This paper seeks to guide doctoral students who consider using Grounded Theory for their stud-ies. It provides a focused critique of Grounded Theory, which can guide their decision to employ it as a research method. More importantly, this paper details and explains the steps doctoral re- micro analysis of word by word data Dr Hilary Engward Grounded Theory Thesis Methodology exemplar Two coding phases: simple (fracture the data Three types of coding: open (identifying, and group) and substantive (open or naming, categorizing, describing selective to explore emergent patterns) to phenomena); axial (the process of relating develop concepts that explains the codes to each other) and selective (choosing phenomena a core category and Estimated Reading Time: 12 mins