Advancing Grounded Theory with Mixed Methods

Elizabeth G. Creamer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367174798
• eBook ISBN: 9780429614880
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Research & Methodology in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This groundbreaking book introduces an innovative new perspective on mixed method grounded theory methodology (MM-GTM) by conceptualizing it holistically as a distinct, qualitatively driven methodology that appreciates the integrity of each of the methods it embraces. This practical and accessible text advocates for using MM-GTM in a way that promote meaningful interaction between qualitative and quantitative data during analysis. Its principal contribution is to provide a set of research tools to develop or refine a multi-faceted analytical framework in applied fields in the social and behavioral sciences, including nursing.

Used as either a resource or a textbook in a survey course about research methods, the text references dozens of examples about how a dialectical exchange between different sources of data can be built into core grounded theory procedures, including theoretical sampling, coding, case-based memoing, and integrated visual displays. With a whole chapter devoted to reporting, the book also considers the way that indexes of quality that extend beyond methodological transparency can be used to evaluate research that partners mixed methods with grounded theory and other qualitative methods.

Featuring student-friendly pedagogy throughout, including self-assessment questions, a glossary, and a framework that summarizes key points, this text is an essential read for all research methods students or early career researchers ambitious to develop a theoretical perspective with qualitative, mixed methods, or evaluation.

CHAPTER 1
Establishing language and purpose

This chapter builds an argument for the creative potential of partnering mixed methods with grounded theory for purposes of advancing analytical insight and developing an explanatory framework. It MMGTM as a distinct methodology and creates a platform for dialog across disciplines by introducing key terminology.

TERMS INTRODUCED IN THIS CHAPTER

• Abduction
• Analytic density
• Conceptual framework
• Constant comparative method
• Fully integrated mixed methods research (FIMMR)
• Fully integrated mixed method grounded theory methodology (FIMM-GTM)
• Grounded theory
• Mixed method research
• Mixed method grounded theory methodology (MM-GTM)
• Multi-method research
• Theory

INTRODUCTION

Since it first began to ferment as a movement with its own set of methodological gurus, mixed method approaches have continually demonstrated adaptability to diverse problems and disciplinary contexts. Its astonishingly broad cross-disciplinary appeal may be unique in that there are thousands of examples of empirical publications and an expansive body of methodological literature supporting the creativity and ingenuity in which it has been applied in practice. Emerging at the same time as the movement toward interdisciplinary team-centered research, the span of the usefulness of approaches that combine methods in practice can be seen by the application of mixed methods to study topics as diverse as poverty in Bangladesh, climate change in Siberia, police practices in Canada, managing the growth in urban locations, and safe drinking water in rural Aboriginal communities. One reason for the adaptability of mixed methods is that it shares, along with multi-method research, the bedrock assumption of the contribution to quality of consulting multiple sources of data that is an ontological assumption endorsed by virtually all social and behavioral researchers. What distinguishes mixed method from multi-method research is the priority awarded to integrating information from multiple sources of data. Multi-method research incorporates multiple sources of data and/or methods but does not integrate them in a substantive way.

At the core of the logic of mixed methods is a commitment to the purposeful engagement of diverse sources of data, analytical procedures, methods, and perspectives in pursuit of greater understanding of the complex interplay between individual and social phenomenon and the natural environment. The most common form of mixing is at the methodological level (Sandelowski, 2014). Its wide adoption across fields of inquiry invites the kind of cross-method conversations that are evident in integrated methodological approaches, like mixed methods approaches to grounded theory (Creamer, 2018a), case study (Cook & Kamalodeen, 2020; Guetterman & Fetters, 2018), participatory action research (Ivankova, 2015; Ivankova & Wingo, 2018), and visual methods (Shannon-Baker & Edwards, 2018). Such partnering challenges us to reconsider the long-standing notion that in today’s rapidly changing world that a researcher can afford to narrowly identify his or her expertise as either qualitative or quantitative. Addressing multi-dimensional topics like those related to poverty, health inequality, immigration, violence, or sustainability requires expertise in a variety of domains. Every researcher needs the skills to be adept at using more than one method to contribute to cutting-edge research.

In the social sciences, we are better scholars, more able to contribute to social inquiry at large, if we develop expertise in a variety of approaches.

(Pearce, 2015, p. 54)

There are many different ways to build a theoretical component in a research study, including by integrating findings from multiple sources of data to build and test a grounded theory or to refine or debunk a long-standing one that has been validated in other settings. Approaches vary as a researcher might initiate a study with a theoretical orientation, find themselves in a position to see the merits in more than one theoretical orientation, or unexpectedly find the need to reach out to the literature to find an explanation for a paradoxical finding. Each of these different approaches to theory construction or refinement underscores a commitment to the contribution to quality of diverse research practices and approaches.

Purpose and contribution

The text offers insight about the research methods and methodology of designing and doing research that integrates a mixed methods and grounded theory. The purpose of this text is to provide an instructional tool that advances the use of qualitative and mixed method procedures in the development and refinement of evidence-based explanatory models in education, health sciences, management, information, and other applied fields in the human and behavioral sciences. The text will fit well in a graduate level research method training course or seminar that begins with a review of grounded theory methods and then shifts to how these can be extended through mixed methods.

One of the aims of this chapter is to open the door for ongoing, cross-disciplinary dialog between qualitative and mixed methods researchers by presenting mixed method grounded theory methodology (MM-GTM) as a type of integrated methodology. A methodology is a specialized type of theory that provides a logic that links procedures. An integrated methodology links one or more methods that are epistemologically compatible. The methodology is not presented as a critique of grounded theory, but as an expansion of the ways it can be used in research in the social and human sciences.

The first chapter introduces some of the key terminology and many of the key themes that will be developed throughout the subsequent five chapters. It builds an argument for MM-GTM as an integrated methodology. The cross-cutting themes weave in and out of every chapter, re-surfacing in each to be further developed and elaborated.

Three principal ideas are at the center of this chapter:

1. The methodological literature, if not necessarily what is evident in practice, has narrowly framed the use of mixed methods with grounded theory in ways that preserve the distinctions between the qualitative and quantitative strands where one phase devoted to developing theory using grounded theory methods and a second that is used to refine or test it using quantitative methods.
2. A MM-GTM approach can also be used to develop or refine an explanatory framework in ways that embed the logic of mixed method in grounded theory analytical procedures.
3. Unexpected findings that emerge from comparing and integrating different sources of data are a major source of innovation and theoretical insights.

Organization of the chapter

The chapter begins by introducing different terms associated with both grounded theory and mixed methods, including by making a distinction between a theoretical (explanatory) and a conceptual framework and between mixed method and multi-method research. It then moves to pointing to evidence of the prevalence of MM-GTM. The next section singles out an exemplar of fully integrated MM-GTM in a way that recognizes its complexity. Next, we consider MM-GTM as a distinct methodology that embeds an abductive logic and a back-and-forth exchange between data from different sources in the constant comparative method and to the analytical procedures like theoretical sampling so central to grounded theory. The use of examples and exemplars is discussed next, with an explanation of the distinction I make between the two. The chapter concludes by linking the key themes from this chapter to the wider set of cross-cutting themes.

VARIOUS WAYS OF DEFINING THEORY AND ITS PURPOSE

Theory construction is at the heart of the scientific process (Jaccard & Jacoby, 2010) and evidence-based practice. A methodologist well known in the community of nursing scholars and among mixed methodologists, Margarite Sandelowski (1993) maintains, stated or not, theoretical understanding is always implicit in the way a problem is conceived. Understood in everyday conversation as a hunch or supposition (Weick, 1995), a theory can be viewed simply as an explanation for the way things work (Collins & Stockton, 2018). In the context of empirical research, a theory is a cohesive explanatory framework generated through a systematic set of empirical procedures. In empirical research where theory is constructed from data, a theoretical framework offers an explanation for a complex phenomenon without erasing the variability in the way it is experienced. Expanding on the relationship between theory and the way research is executed, Agerfalk (2014) wrote: “Theories help to organize our thoughts, explain phenomena, ensure consistent explanations, improve our predictions, and inform design” (p. 594).

In the context of the social and human sciences, the type of theory produced through MM-GTM is not an abstraction with limited practical utility. A theory can provide an explanation or multiple explanations not only about what is happening in a setting, but also why and how that might be the case. Its practical utility to evidence-based policy and practices lies in offering a better understanding of the “why” and “how” of observed effects (Burch & Henrich, 2017). This kind of reasoning is essential to justify an intervention designed to improve learning, health, or well-being. Without a theoretical basis, an intervention is an expensive version of trial and error (Eccles, Grimshaw, Walker, Johnston,& Pitts, 2005). Using multiple methods and multiple frameworks creates the best context for generating novel ideas and new insight (Jaccard & Jacoby, 2010).

Theories help to organize our thoughts, explain phenomena, ensure consistent explanations, improve our predictions, and inform design.

(Agerfalk, 2014, p. 594)

No matter how well substantiated, many widely cited theories about human behavior, such as those about learning or motivation or rational choice, are shaped by the socio-cultural climate at the time they were first conceived and validated. They can be a poor fit to guide investigations of dynamic environments like schools, hospitals, or for-profit or not-for-profit organization and the diverse clientele they serve. In a multi-cultural society, for example, it seems antiquated to assume a perspective developed in the 1950s that an immigrant’s acculturation to a new society requires the abandonment of one’s home culture, foods, and holiday practices. We can yearn for the seeming certainty offered by a well-established theory and validated instruments, but one of the principal conclusions drawn by researchers struggling to explain dissonance between the results suggested by their qualitative and quantitative data is that the phenomenon they studied were far more complex and multi-faceted than initially conceived (Creamer, 2018c).

Grounded theory

There are multiple prominent schools of thought about grounded theory and what constitutes its core principles. The method, according to Charmaz and Thornberg (2020), is often mistakingly treated as a “mechanical application of procedures” (p. 7). Grounded theory is first and foremost a methodology that provides a comprehensive approach to generate a theoretical framework inductively from data. “The very purpose of grounded theory research is to produce theory,” Sandelowski maintains (1993, p. 214). The aim of grounded theory is to develop an abstract explanation, not prediction (Charmaz, 2017a). Although approached in many different ways, grounded theory is conventionally conceived as a systematic inductive or emergent approach to understand basic social psychological processes and the ways individuals, groups, or organizations change over time (Benoliel, 1996). According to Glaser, grounded theory is “the systematic generation of theory from data that has itself been systematically obtained” (1978a, p. 2). Although arguably in can never be entirely so, an inductive or emergent approach is used both to build and refine theory. Grounded theory makes the critical distinction between the process of discovery associated with an inductive mindset and theory generation and the confirmatory mindset and deductive reasoning associated with hypotheses testing. Theory building, not verification, is the aim of grounded theory (Urquhart, Lehmann, & Myers 2010).

The very purpose of grounded theory research is to produce theory.

(Sandelowski, 1993, p. 214)

Although it is not something most grounded theorists write about, a conceptual framework is one of many variants of the way that theorizing can be approached in a research study. This type of explanatory framework is a critical step in the process of constructing the design of a study because it can provide a logical coherence that links across of phases of the research process (Creswell & Plano, 2011; Maxwell & Loomis, 2003). A conceptual framework offers a tentative explanatory framework that is based on a synthesis of related literature and what is known in a practical way about a phenomenon. It is assembled by the researcher to map how all the literature works together in a study (Collins & Stockton, 2018). It reflects assumptions about the phenomenon being studied (Maxwell, 2012). A conceptual framework often integrates more than one theoretical perspective. Conflicting explanations evid...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Abbreviated table of contents
• Annotated table of contents
• Detailed contents
• List of tables, figures, and boxes
• Preface
• 1 Establishing language and purpose
• 2 Varied approaches to using mixed methods with theoretical frameworks
• 3 Mixed methods and the process of theorizing
• 4 Advancing theoretical reasoning with visualizations
• 5 Leveraging dissonance to advance theoretical reasoning
• 6 Highlighting quality through reporting
• Glossary
• Appendices
• References
• Index