An Evening of Grounded Theory: Teaching Process through Demonstration and Simulation
Frances Huehls
Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Indiana
Grounded theory can be effectively introduced in a survey course through a combination of lecture/demonstration and simulation. The class session presented here illustrates a way to introduce graduate students to the process of grounded theory and gain hands-on experience through simulation. The lesson utilizes concepts that the students are familiar with, allowing them to focus on the research process, and encourages internalization of concepts through immediate application. Key Words: Constant Comparative Method, Grounded Theory, Philanthropy, Qualitative Inquiry, and Simulation
Introduction
Grounded theory may be particularly difficult for beginning student researchers to grasp because the process reverses the order of empirical research—hypothesis generation followed by data collection. The idea that theories can be generated from data—let alone qualitative data—contradicts the scientific tradition they were taught in elementary school science. Students of social problems deal with complex issues that can be analyzed in all of their dimensions by methods of inquiry such as grounded theory, which rely on more than analysis of quantifiable data. This is beautifully illustrated by the grounded theory approach used by Harry, Sturges, and Klingner (2005) in their research of minority student representation in special education.
I teach qualitative research methods within the field of philanthropic studies, a cross-disciplinary area of study that addresses charitable giving, volunteering, and nonprofit/nongovernmental/charitable organizations. Our students can pursue a Master of Arts degree, which examines philanthropy from religious, philosophical, economic, social, historical, and legal viewpoints or can choose a course of study for a master’s in public administration focused on management of nonprofit organizations. Both groups are welcome to enroll in the course. Since this is a survey course in qualitative inquiry for master’s level students, the amount of time that can be devoted to any particular method is limited. Unless students decide to use grounded theory for their individual research projects, this class session is their only exposure beyond text reading.
My purpose is to present the reader with a detailed description of my evening-long class session on grounded theory in the hope that some or all of what is presented can be used to teach a similar class. I begin with a statement of learning objectives, a brief summary of the session, and a discussion of pedagogical issues. This is followed by detailed narratives describing the lecture/demonstration and simulation components of the class session. Finally, reflective observations, including limitations of the session and modifications that may be necessary to ensure continued effectiveness are made.
329 The Qualitative Report June 2005
Instructors who are teaching grounded theory at an advanced level or in a course dedicated solely to that methodology will find this approach too elementary for their needs. It will be most useful for survey courses and instructors seeking an introductory approach.
The learning objectives for my students are to apply the approach presented in their text, Colin Robson’s
Real World Research: A Resource for Social Scientists and Practitioner-Researchers (2002) in order to:
• Identify categories within a set of data
• Find relationships within these categories
• Identify core concepts that describe these relationships
In addition, I want them to be able to recognize the use of grounded theory when they encounter it in published research.
The most recent iteration of this lesson was given in two parts: a lecture/demonstration to introduce the students to the process of grounded theory, followed by a hands-on simulation exercise that allowed them to work through the mechanics of the process. Since our class met for 150 minutes during the evening, variety in presentation and hands-on involvement helped keep everyone alert and involved. Prior to class, the students were assigned reading from our main text, Colin Robson’s Real World Research: A Resource for Social Scientists and Practitioner-Researchers (2002).
In line with good teaching practice, the lesson presented was both learning-centered and mindful of individual learning styles. Although student participation may be minimal, lecture presentations are appropriate when the goal is to provide an overview of a process or topic (Saroyan & Amundsen, 2004). The interaction of the simulation that followed the lecture served multiple purposes. Feedback during the simulation informed me of how well the students understood what was presented in the lecture. The interaction of the simulation exercise also affirmed to the individual students that they understood the material presented and its relevance to their course of study. Simulation entails decision-making that encourages cognitively complex thinking (McCombs & Whisler, 1997; Saroyan & Amundsen). The combination of lecture, which presents abstract concepts illustrated with concrete examples, and simulation, which is both active and reflective, provides both comfort and challenges across learning styles (Little, 2004; Mainemelis, Boyatzis, & Kolb, 2002; Terry, 2001).
Lecture/Demonstration
The lecture began by reviewing existing definitions of philanthropic studies, with a focus on broad versus narrow meaning. The students were already familiar with these definitions including "study of voluntary action for the public good" (Payton, 1988b) and "study of voluntary giving for public purposes" (Payton, 1988a), which are deliberately broad and inclusive. As the person responsible for developing a library research collection for philanthropic studies, I had struggled to find a definition with boundaries to exclude some literature but detailed enough to enable intelligent choices. To synthesize an operational definition that would facilitate book selections, I decided to develop a theory of philanthropic studies that was grounded in the literature itself. I pointed out to
Frances Huehls 330
the students that it was not feasible to examine a huge body of literature such as the collection of the Library of Congress to find the part that represented the field of philanthropic studies. Because of that limitation, I decided to "interview" the Library of Congress subject headings: the thesaurus used to describe the content of books published in the English language. This five-volume thesaurus was shared around the seminar table to demonstrate the enormity of the data pool of possible subject descriptors.
I reminded the class that I was able to approach this task intelligently because I have more than a decade of experience with literature in the field. Grounded theory is based on the notion that the researcher is informed and ready to make decisions about individual pieces of data—to recognize the "plausible relationships proposed among concepts and sets of concepts" (Strauss & Corbin, 1994, p. 278). In my case, this meant going through the five volumes of subject headings and testing each subject heading with a yes/no decision: yes, the subject was related to philanthropic studies or no, there was no relationship. For example, the following table replicates the contents of a page of subject headings and the decision made about each entry (Table 1).
Table 1
Sample of Library of Congress Subject Headings
Benefit of inventory
NO
Benefit performances
YES
Benefit Street (Worcester, Mass.)
NO
Benelux countries
NO
Benet-Mercle machine gun
NO
Beneticos Range (Spain)
NO
Beneux family
NO
Benevento (Italy)
NO
Benevolence
YES
Benevolence in literature
YES
Benfield family
NO
Beng (African people)
NO
Beng language
NO
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