Showing papers on "Grounded theory published in 1987"

Dimensions of Effective School Leadership: The Teacher’s Perspective

Abstract: The study reported in this paper examines teachers’ perspectives on effective school leadership. Formal interviews, both unstructured and structured, and informal interviews were used to collect data from teachers in one urban high school in the southeastern United States. Data were collected and analyzed according to guidelines for grounded theory research. This article describes factors teachers identified with effective school principals and the impact of these factors on the teachers and their relationships with other faculty, students, and parents. The research data are discussed briefly in terms of their implications for leadership training and research.

Identity of self as infertile: an example of theory-generating research.

Abstract: This article presents results of a study using grounded-theory methodology to explore the meaning of infertility to those persons experiencing it. Thirty-two persons were interviewed, including 15 married couples and two married women whose husbands were either unable or unwilling to participate in the study. Forty-five semistructured interviews were conducted, as each person was interviewed separately and 13 couples were interviewed conjointly. Through the ongoing process of data collection and analysis, a substantive grounded theory was generated, with a core concept being that as persons experience unwanted infertility they take on a central identity of themselves as infertile. The process of taking on and managing this identity is described.

The relationship between quality of nursing care and the ward as a learning environment: developing a methodology.

Abstract: This paper describes the development of a methodology to study the relationship between quality of care received by patients and the quality of the ward as a learning environment for nurses in training. Firstly, the literature review and background literature to the research question are described. Secondly, the methodology or rationale for the choice of methods is discussed. Key research perspective include (a) the role of the participant observer in generating low level grounded theory or working hypotheses and (b) triangulation of the data using a multi-method approach. The organization of the project is outlined schematically and the research setting and data collection described. The final section of the paper discusses preliminary findings as illustrative of the grounded theory approach, i.e. the analysis of the data as they are collected and the formulation of working hypotheses to be tested and developed as the research progresses.

On Managing Midlife Transitions in Career and Family

Abstract: Transitions are ubiqitious phenomena in modern life. This research sets forth a grounded theory phase sequence model of the transition process. The model is used to explore the midlife transition in terms of emotionality, changing career and family investments, and movement toward autonomy at the workplace. Implications for careerists and human resource management are suggested.

Action research and curriculum development

Abstract: Action research is a form of self-reflective problem solving which enables practitioners to better understand and solve pressing problems in social settings. It aims at feeding the practical judgment of practitioners in problematic situations. The validity of the concepts and models it generates depends not so much on tests of truth as on their utility in helping actors to be more effective and act more intelligently. Action research is a form of grounded theory, since models are not validated independent of practice and then applied to curriculum, but tested through human trials. The vital thing about action research is that it invites the practitioner to improve his performance through studying his work. One of the difficulties of discussing action research is that it is contemporaneously defined differently by different actors and has been under the umbrella of various scientific paradigms during different periods of curriculum history (McKernan, 1988a). The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore the historical and philosophical evolution of action research as it has emerged as a scientific enterprise; and second, to explore links between action research and teacher involvement in curriculum research and curriculum development, paying particular attention to the constraints on practitioners.

Qualitative analysis for social scientists: Memos and memo writing

Abstract: In this chapter, a number of theoretical memos written by researchers during their various studies are reproduced. Before reading and studying them, it is requisite to at least scan the earlier discussion in Chapter 1 about memos and their indispensable functions in discovering, developing, and formulating a grounded theory. In the previous chapter on the student seminars as well in later chapters, one can frequently sense the hovering presence of memos which arise out of codes and ideas generated in seminar, consultation, and team sessions. In fact, one explicit rule of thumb is that such sessions must soon be followed by a jotting down or typing out of the summary or the thoughts stimulated, just as individual researchers need to interrupt their data collecting and coding to write memos. Furthermore, recollect that waiting for the muse to appear is not the model here. Although there are periods of intense memo writing, grounded theorists are trained to write memos regularly – often from the first days of a research project – and in close conjunction with the data collecting and coding. (See discussion of the triad, Chapter 1. See also Glaser 1978, pp. 83–92.) The initial memos tend to look a little like those written by novices at this general style of memo writing: at first, a high proportion of them may be operational (what data to collect, where to go to do this), or reminder notes (don't forget to …, or don't forget this point), or scattered “bright ideas,” or fumbling around with a flood of undifferentiated products of coding, or just thinking aloud on paper for purposes of stimulation in order to see where that thinking will lead, and so on.

A Grounded Theory of Thesis Blocking

Abstract: Interviews were conducted with 10 individuals who had great difficulty in completing a thesis, and with 6 students who had relatively little difficulty. A hierarchical structure of categories encap...

Dimensions of ineffective school leadership: the teachers' perspective

Abstract: The study reported in this paper examines teachers' perspectives on ineffective school leadership. Unstructured and structured interviews, open‐ended questionnaires, and observations were used to collect data from teachers in one urban high school in the southeastern United States. Data were collected and analyzed according to guidelines for grounded theory research. This paper describes factors teachers identified with ineffective school principals and the impact of these factors on the teachers and their relationships with other faculty, students, and parents. Theoretical ideas derived from the data are discussed. These ideas focus on relationships between school principal factors and the sociocultural context of the school.

Toward self-integration: the recovery process of chemically dependent nurses.

Abstract: This qualitative field research explored and described the process of recovery for chemically dependent nurses. Data collection methods included participant observation in a chemically dependent nurses' self-help group for one year and in-depth interviews with 20 chemically dependent nurses who were in the process of recovery. Data analysis was done according to the grounded theory methods. In accordance with this method, a substantive theory was proposed that viewed the recovery process as a move from self-annihilation to self-integration. Stages and phases of self-integration are presented.

Both A Borrower and A Lender Be: Ethnography, Oral History, and Grounded Theory

Abstract: The Ingersolls have lived and worked together in Thailand during four extended periods since the 1950s and each has made several shorter visits individually. An earlier version of this essay was presented at the fall meeting of Oral History in the Mid-Atlantic Region (OHMAR) held on November 16, 1985, at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., in a panel exploring the conjunction between oral historical and anthropological fieldwork.

The Management of Dying: Tasks and Social Relationships in Patient Care.

Abstract: The broad question that permeates this research is do health care provider medical practices meet the criteria of humane patient care? This research focuses on current forms of patient care, attempting to determine through description, analyses, and interpretation of generated data whether these forms meet the criteria of humane patient care. The general aim of this research is to acquire a better understanding of the complexity of interaction between health care providers, and dying patients and their families. This study documents how health care providers manage themselves, their patients who are in the process of dying, and the patient's family members (if any). In order to achieve this objective, this study examines the social organization of health care associated with care of the dying; patterns of interaction during the hospitalized dying process; the integrating, controlling, and specifying function certain types of speech and silences fulfill in socially situated actions; and how the hospital's organization influences the dying process, either by facilitation or constraint.

The Discourse of Dropout in Distance Education: A Theoretical Analysis.

Abstract: Research studies trying to understand, predict, and control dropout from distance education display various points of view and quite a few build on one another at a conceptual level, but their findings are rarely generalizable outside the situations in which the research is conducted. Although academics claim that new work on dropout should be based on theory appropriate to distance education, dropout is a single symptom with multiple causes, and a deductive analysis based on almost any reasonable model (let alone a fully-developed theory) is likely to explain only a small portion of dropout. An inductive approach (such as the use of grounded theory) might produce more practical information about dropouts even if it did not clarify theoretical issues in distance education. A review of the existing literature suggests that, besides the negative implications, dropout can be a healthy choice for a mobile or independent learner. Such a review raises a number of unanswered questions about dropouts in positive and negative circumstances and takes the researcher into the broader social context of education where theory from such eisc.Lplines as sociology, anthropology, political science, or economics (rather than psychology or curriculum design) might prove meaningful. By using these new frameworks to examine the nature of discourse of dropout in distance education, researchers may recognize ways to reconcepLualize the problem and collect data that will speak less from the registrar's point of view and more about the experience of sturl.ents, (41 references) (GL) * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that ca:, be made * from the original document. *

A grounded theory of genre acquisition: Learning to control different textual forms

Abstract: An on-going three year study of one teacher's classroom reveals a successful approach to teaching different textual forms. This approach is shown to be consistent with current language learning theory.

Qualitative analysis for social scientists: Reading and writing research publications

Abstract: Reading for analytic logic An important preliminary skill to be learned, if only to improve one's writing, is the acquired ability to read research publications for their underlying analytic logics (see, especially, Glaser 1978, pp. 129–30). Of course, everyone reads publications for their ideas, substantive findings, and perhaps, for useful data. But not everyone knows how to examine them for the analytic structures embedded in them. What is meant by “underlying analytic logics” is whether the publication is organized around proof or causality or concern for consequences, or a setting out of strategies or of topologies, or. … Some researchers are quite explicit about the foci of their publications, others are not; and sometimes they themselves are not clear about their analytic purposes. So, it is very good practice for fledgling analysts to be able to read and think in terms of the logic of analysis. Having learned this skill, it helps them to think more clearly about their own writing, to organize it with more facility, and to give critical attention to the presentation of its underlying analysis. It also contributes to the novice researcher's understanding of how grounded theory is developed, and how its presentation often looks quite different from others written in different “qualitative” styles. So the students are presented very early in the seminar with examples of underlying analytic logics; then must practice finding these by themselves. We shall give several examples of such analytic logics, briefly discussed, since once the idea is grasped it only takes a bit of practice to carry out these examinations.

The genesis of an innovation: a case study of emergent concerns and micropolitical solutions

Abstract: The following analysis is based on a case study of three years duration (1983-1986), and focuses on a physical education department at a large English comprehensive school which became involved in a teacher initiated curriculum innovation when a new Head of Department was appointed in September 1983. The research process was guided by the grounded theory approach, and the use of prolonged observation coupled with reflexive interviews allowed the emergent concerns of the teachers in relation to the innovation to be made evident, as competing definitions of both subject paradigm and pedagogy clashed. Within the department, several micropolitical strategies were constructed to cope with the pressures of change, which legitimised a dislocation between the 'classroom' and 'educational' contexts of the school, allowing some of the teachers to deflect the implications of the innovation for their own practice. It is suggested that the strategies employed by teachers arise within the social context of the school as a work place that provides, dilemmas, opportunities and possibilities within which the teacher constructs, modifies and abandons coping strategies to enhance both long and short term self interests.

The cognitive development of women: a grounded theory derived from fiction

Abstract: s International (DAI) for entries containing research on women's development or themes of development in women's literature resulted in some sources. By far the most valuable sources of literature, however, were reference lists and bibliographies of books and journal articles. A computer search of ERIC documents using the descriptors "cognitive development," "intellectual development," and "female," yielded twelve unpublished papers and

Qualitative analysis for social scientists: Research consultations and teaching: guidelines, strategies, and style

Abstract: It would be less than honest if we did not signal to our readers some of the guidelines, strategies, and general style that lie behind both our teaching of grounded theory methods to students and our consultations with research associates, colleagues, and others who seek advice on the conduct of their own research. Not everyone who is committed to this particular analytic approach would necessarily concur with what will be written below – for strategies and styles are linked with individual temperaments, personal predilections, and teaching/consulting contingencies. But readers will understand much better the contents of this book if they keep in mind that the teaching and consulting portrayed in it are informed by the points covered in this chapter. Again, these are presented in the spirit of their being used as guidelines rather than rules. Please do not regard them as dogmatically held prescriptions for teaching and learning. We use these guidelines also in working with research partners and teammates. Presumably they could also help lone researchers working with – and teaching – themselves. These are guidelines for teaching and consulting, where the aim is not merely to instruct in techniques (though that, too) or to solve technical problems. The aim is to help in enhancing and sometimes in unlocking the creativity of students and consultees. While research has, of course, its routines and its routine stretches of activity nevertheless, the best research – Can anyone seriously doubt it? – involves a creative process by creative minds. The issue here, then, is how to further it and them.

Qualitative analysis for social scientists: Seminar on open coding

Abstract: This chapter is not a discussion of research procedures as such, but is an extended illustration of open coding, with commentaries on particular instances of it. Again, readers who are eager to move directly to procedures should defer reading this chapter until later, although it is placed here because to most readers it should be useful to at least scan it, especially the analytic commentary in its closing pages. The chapter consists of one case: a research seminar session which was recorded on tape. The format of the presentation is this: first, a short introduction to the case; second, the analytic discussion itself; third, an analytic summary, with a detailed commentary on each phase of that unfolding discussion. In the long extended case, the seminar participants are seen working together on the very real data of a researcher–student. By contrast, the pain-theory case in Chapter 2 illustrated a very active teacher, at a very early session of the seminar, “getting across” various elements of grounded theory methodology, using not a presenting student's data but only the combined experiential data of himself and the class participants. Here, while experiential data come visibly into play as an element of the analysis, the chief data are not collective data. Besides, there is the additional, if invisible, drama of a presenting student who is deeply concerned about the outcome – the product – of the class discussion. Of course, the materials in this chapter are designed not only to illustrate the teaching–learning of analysis within the seminar setting, but to clarify further how qualitative analysis, especially open coding, is carried out in the grounded theory style of analysis.