Postlude

It's been six months since I received my PhD and I'm still as enthralled with classic grounded theory as ever.

This is just a little note to tell everyone reading my blog (for some reason, people continue to come and read this blog) that Barney Glaser is now on Youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/user/jillrhine

Check him out, listen to his wisdom, and go do some good grounded theory!

Close to Finishing

One of the things to do in order to legitimize one's classic GT in the academic world is to "retrofit" your theory to the existing literature. Most GT scholars are irreverent about doing this. They are more interested in how the theory has fit and grab for the participants than they are in how it fits in which the trail of academic research that preceded.

Well, I am very much in academia, and so I need to know the rules and play by them (as SW put it: be in the game but not of it.)

Well, lo and behold, my theory is pretty "big" (I don't have the mind for a more apt word, after writing for over 12 hours), so my literature review has taken over 3 weeks to do. This is not literature that is completely new to me as I was already fairly familiar with the field. But when you have a theory to "retrofit," the literature you read take on a new lens. You start to look for and see things you did not see before. And of course, with each new search, another piece of literature pops up.

It's exciting. But it's also exhausting.

This dissertation has got to be done, and soon! The literature background section has taken me three days to write (after 3 weeks of reading and re-reading), and I am still not done. Sure, the chapter is brilliant--it really is, IMHO--but I'm fed up with the work. As they say in Caprica, this is taking too fracking long.

On Resurrection Sunday, I will wake up and not go to church. Instead, I will hit my computer with my fingers to finish up chapter 2. And when chapter 2 is done, I will re-read it together with chapter 3, 4, and 5, and edit. After that, Monday will come, and I will begin writing my conclusion and discussion chapter, 6. It should be a significantly easier chapter to write. Hopefully, I can finish it in one day. And finally, after that is done, I will pull it all together by writing chapter 1.

The kids' Easter break will be over next weekend. I owe them big time--about 7 years of absence. I will send off the entire draft of the dissertation to my adviser by Thursday, and then, take a long weekend off to some beach hotel and just relax for the entire weekend.

Now, that would be a holyday [sic]--spending real connecting time with family.

Barney Glaser Is...

Barney Glaser is a genius.

If I never knew that before, I know it now.

To me, a genius is not a person completely untouchable by common folk. A genius is simply someone who really stands out from the crowd in terms of ideas and insights. Like the Beatles. We can all sing their songs, and yet they have been hailed as geniuses.

Hey Jude~

So, why exactly is Barney a genius? Because he can cut through the crap. And his methodology cuts through the crap.

I say crap, but I don't mean it as if I am above crap. This crap that I'm talking about is vested social interests that shape and form knowledge, otherwise known as academia.

It's a club. And it is so cleverly done that those who are not in it, gawk with awe at it, give it a good deal of worship, and really have no way of knowing whether it is as valuable as it is perceived. Because academic parlance, if you will, completely masquerades itself through jargons. When you are well-masqueraded enough--like Madonna--a mystique starts to develop around you.

Barney knows that, talked about that, talks about that, and teaches us to see it.

That's all for tonight. I won't elaborate further. If you want to know more, leave a comment.

Writing Fever

That's it!

I've gone back through all of my coded data, saturated my sub-categories, and made conceptual ties to portions that were previously more descriptive. My intuition was mostly correct as I only had to reword a couple of my sub-categories.

Of course, I moaned and groaned and considered giving up over the past 5 days of doing this, but the effort has proven worthwhile.

What is even MORE exciting is that tonight, I read a booklet written by a practitioner in the field that I am studying. This is DATA! And guess what?

Guess what???

My theory completely explains his perspectives!!!

Not only that, the data from him represents a group of people from which I had difficulty obtaining interviews. So I can quote him!!!

And best of all... well, not best best of all, but pretty close to best best... I sent that data with my theoretical scribbles in the margins to Adviser and sh'he wrote back saying that sh'he can't wait to read my theory!!!

The best best of all is this: I believe I have a really good theory on my hands!

No, I don't believe it, I know it!

I know it! I know it! I know it!

(Okay, did I overdo the exclamation marks?)

And now it's 5:40am and I refuse to go to sleep even after working 7 hours straight. I am writing out my theory now, and boy, am I ever excited!

Regrounding Intuition (Alternate Title: Follow The Process!)

One of the things I did to develop Theory D was to write an abstract for Conference In Resort City. In my rush to get out my abstract, I had to rely somewhat on my intuition to come up with several of the sub-categories for my theory. From the recent feedback I received at the workshop in Oldest Varsity, I came to understand that there is more work to be done to develop a Full-Package grounded theory.

And so, I am back to the drawing board, so to speak, and going through my data once again to ensure that all of my categories have a good audit trail to them. In other words, I am having to reground my intuition.

It's good. It's good. Rigorous detailed work it is, but necessary.

I'm 100 per cent sure the data is there and that the sub-categories come from the data. But what I understand now, especially after reading through Perspectives III: Theoretical Coding (Glaser, 2005), is that having well-saturated categories, a good stack of memos, and going through a diligent and creative hand-sorting process of memos with theoretical codes in mind will yield a much more conceptual theory.

The GT process has been well laid-out. I just need to follow it.

I can't wait to do another GT study after this dissertation is done. The next time, I will follow the process to a T . . . or to a GT . . . Bad pun. Never mind.

Note: I know many dissertators who don't put in this much effort (and expense) to perfect their craft. Yet those dissertators tend to become ex-dissertators in good time. Oh, to be an ex-dissertator!

Feeling Much Less Lonely

Attending seminar at Oldest Varsity has been incredibly validating. Not only am I getting a real hang of learning classic grounded theory, I am feeling supported, understood, and excited about my dissertation more than ever before. Being in an environment where people understand what I am doing and can furthermore guide me towards the next steps in incredibly reassuring.

I am, indeed, feeling much less lonely.

I have also noticed that my brain is overflowing with ideas on classic grounded theory since attending this seminar. I am wondering if I should start a new blog focused just on "Classic Grounded Theory?" So many of my posts in the recent past has been about grounded theory.

Do I have enough to say about "lonely dissertating" to justify a separate blog? I don't know. Well, for now, I think I'll just keep writing here and label the grounded theory posts as such (see "labels" on the right panel).

Grounded Theory: Staying Conceptual & Entering An Area of Interest

I presented my emerging theory today and received a lot of helpful feedback. I want to blog about two key ideas: Staying Conceptual, and Entering An Area of Interest.

1. Staying Conceptual

Staying conceptual is something that I had understood was important, but until now, hadn't quite got the bearings of how to do it. Doing grounded theory requires going back and forth between conceptualizing and theoretically sampling data that is often descriptive in nature. I have a tendency to get caught up in the description such that I lose sight of the concepts. The notion of "conceptual description" is very helpful. Many so-called grounded theory studies describe concepts rather than tie them together through Theoretical Codes.

Today's wikipedia entry on Grounded Theory explains theoretical codes in this way:

Theoretical codes integrate the theory by weaving the fractured concepts into hypotheses that work together in a theory explaining the main concern of the participants. Theoretical coding means that the researcher applies a theoretical model to the data.

Two of my friends had defended their dissertations using grounded theory. One used Charmaz and the other used Strauss & Corbin. In both cases, what they had presented were really "conceptual descriptions." The first one using Charmaz just had a list of themes -- I am not even sure if s'he even had concepts come to think of it. The second one using Strauss & Corbin had concepts but s'he did not have a Core Category nor did s'he tie the concepts together through theoretical codes. Classic grounded theory emphasizes the importance of a core category as well as theoretical codes to bring the fractured concepts together.

This is theorizing!

And the theoretical codes, like the concepts (also known as substantive codes), need to emerge from the data, and not be forced onto the data.

The good news is, even with just a core category and a list of conceptual descriptions that have emerged from data (without tying them together with theoretical codes), one can have a brilliant, respectable piece of work. Such is the power of classic grounded theory.

2. Entering An Area of Interest

Many grounded theories that I have read have pertained to a specified population or a group of people. That was how I understood the word "substantive theory": that is applies to a particular group of people, e.g. the homeless, cancer patients, etc. I was not sure how one could enter into an area of interest where it applies to an action, say, "nagging."

However, in talking with Barney Glaser today, he clarified that what is more important is to have an area of interest, and just jump into the area and begin to collect data. You never know where it is going to lead you. He gave the example of one study which looked at Greek Dancing. This study came up with the a main concern or core category that pertained to something having to do with the rigorous exchange of partners, and having to manage that. Barney also cited his grounded theory of inheritance as another example.

So one could study nagging by simply jumping into data collection and follow the analysis where it leads, using the classic GT questions.

- - -

That's it. No clever post today. Just a little movement towards better understanding of classic grounded theory at Oldest Varsity.

A Whole New Respect!

I've been working hard to piece together the elements of my theory.

Boy! Is it ever hard work!

What is harder about it is that when I go in to the literature now to fill in some data-gaps, I find that people have been writing about what I have discovered through theoretical sampling and constant comparison.

Yes, there has been a great deal of uncertainty on my part as to whether I really have anything new or useful to say, but aside from that--which I have come to accept as a natural part of the process of writing up theory--what I am discovering is a true WOW factor. Not wow for myself, but wow for some of these scholars.

It is HARD to come up with original theory. So, I have brand new respect for these awesome award winning, chaired professor scholars. Their work (just good scholarly research, not necessarily grounded theory) have captured so succinctly and so well the things I have been struggling to put into words the last couple of weeks. Truly, theirs is work worth commending. Now I can begin to really tell the difference between amazing scholars and so-so scholars in my field. What's exciting is that my field is so young that many of these folks are still alive, and I'll get to meet them and hopefully not fumble my words when I open my mouth.

And here is also a new kind of respect I have for classic grounded theory: only by doing grounded theorizing have I been able to come to appreciate truly amazing scholarship. I would not have appreciated just how brilliant and hardworking these folks are had I stuck to the verification of variables in some quantitative way (even though I would have finished my Ph.D. a year ago). In my many years of study, I have been taught to critique theories but never to craft them. As good as I have been with theories, the act of crafting a theory has given me a level understanding about theories that critiquing and applying theories alone could never give.

I believe that developing a grounded theory would be an excellent exercise for an upper undergraduate or beginning masters research methodology class--to give students a chance to grapple with the challenge of theorizing and appreciate the value of a really well-crafted theory.

Unexpected Tranquility

I'm sitting on my desk cutting up memos into strips for comparing and sorting. And I feel great.

[ Rewind story to the beginning ]

The past couple of days have been filled with stress -- work stress, that is. I thought to myself that I certainly would not have the energy to be able to dissertate after spending all day attending to work matters having to do with politics and negotiations. But I was wrong.

Professor Whitehair, whom I have always respected, encouraged me concerning my feelings of loneliness in research. He shared with me that the short time spans that he does get to spend on research are far and few in-between that when he has them, they are extremely precious to him.

I am liking my paper-cutting time right now, even though it is 7pm and I am still at the office. Not only does it relax me from the irritating and mundane work-life, the act of physically cutting paper gives my brain a whole different way to think of my data.

I feel rejuvenated in this tranquility. I will begin to see my times dissertating not as lonely, but as tranquil.

The Tranquil Dissertator? Hmm...

To D or not to D

I am feeling uncertain about a possible core category which I am calling, "D". I feel uncertain about this core category not because the data does not point towards it, but no other scholar in the field has called it that.

But everything in my data says: "D is it!"

In fact, when I talked to a respondent yesterday, he too, said "D? That's EXACTLY it."

So, why do I feel so nervous about this core category?

Because I may very well be leading a new movement in the field. And I have a feeling that other scholars in the field will attack me for it -- because they are so attached to the established perspectives, particularly, they like to call the phenomenon "S." Twenty-over years of research calling something "S," and with grounded theory emergence, I am seeing "D" instead. Dare I challenge the field with a new movement? Do I really know what I am talking about? Aren't I just a small, little doctoral student?

What I need to do now is to do more theoretical sampling and test out potential core category "D." See if I get more similar responses than the one I got yesterday.

\\\\/, \\\\/, \\\\/, \\\\/, \\\\/, \\\\/, \\\\/

For every 10 minutes of focused work that I do, I make a tick on my virtual MacBook sticky pad. Like this: \

Each hour consists of 5 x 10 minutes, giving myself a 10 minute break, adding to a full hour's work.

How many hour's work did I do? Yes, you counted that right. SEVEN hours of effective work done.

SEVEN!!!

Remember how unmotivated I was yesterday? And how I didn't force the issue, but decided to come back with more motivation today?

\o/

When I came back and told my wife, she shared that a friend and her prayed specifically this morning that I would be very focused in my work. Prayer works!

So...

All collected data has been coded!!! Now, to print out every single one of my coded "variables" and do some serious comparing and contrasting (which I have already been doing, because I have tons of memos). Then, I can zoom in on some variable, even consider them to be codes, and do targeted theoretical sampling.

I'm reaching a very exciting phase of my grounded theory: emergence!

Conference in Resort City in the Americas

Remember how I struggled to get my dissertation abstract to be sent in to a conference since December 4th?

Well, I heard back right away from the evaluation committee, and surprise, surprise, they were not taken aback by my orthodox grounded theory methodology.

And so, I received the doctoral scholarship, and I will be flying to Resort City in the Americas (RCA) to present my emerging work in April 2010.

Hopefully, I will be able to have my dissertation fully completed by then.

Question: to bring wife or not to bring wife along to RCA? :-D

---

Edit (Dec 19): It turns out that I didn't receive a scholarship yet, my dissertation was only accepted. Twenty over doctoral dissertations were accepted, and only five scholarships will be given out, to be announced later. A proposal using classic GT methodology winning a competitive scholarship? I have my doubts. :-/

So tired...

Was able to both get some movement happening in my dissertation (thanks to a wonderful GT consultant) as well as send in my dissertation abstract for a doctoral scholarship for a conference in April (thanks to the conference organizer for emailing me and offering me a one-day extension, unprompted).

But boy, am I tired. And tomorrow is a full day's work.

It's already 2:30am.

zzz...

Memoing is Another Word for Journaling!

I have been journaling since the tender age of eleven. So I understand the discovery-through-writing process very well. In fact, it has become an integral part of my continual journey of personal growth. This blog is just one good example of my journaling.

When GT Consultant whom I recently engaged told me to memo just the way I blog (*courtesy wave to GT Consultant if s/he is reading this*), I thought s/he was just trying to be a good teacher, connecting memoing to something with which I am familiar. As it turns out, s/he wasn't kidding at all. Memoing is very simply, discovery-through-writing. Although there are things one ought to do to keep the process at a theoretical level (I refer you to Glaser's 1978 text, Theoretical Sensitivity), the "feel" of memoing is not at all different from what I have been doing for years: the iterative process of recording and discovering my thoughts on paper/computer.

So... why haven't I been memoing all this time? I think it's because I thought memoing was something more fancy and difficult. After all, research is not supposed to be so natural and fun... or is it? [insert grin]

I feel like I'm on cloud 9!

Watch out world, a dissertation is coming your way!

About Learning

I wish I could have a better attitude about learning, but when you've been doing something for more than a year and a half, and you find that you still haven't learned what you were supposed to learn, it's time to hold down the shift key on your keyboard and randomly hit some keys along the number row. For example:

#@!&^$%

Anyway, today, I realized that I did not read Barney's section on "memoing" very well. In a way, it's not my fault. His writing is dense and hard for a novice to follow. Nevertheless, it was a smack-myself-on-the-forehead realization (from the help of a couple of classic GT experts) that I am supposed to memo right from the start.

Memo. Right. From. The. Start.

"Memos lead, naturally to abstraction or ideation. Memoing is a constant process that begins when first coding data [emphasis added], and continues through reading memos or literature, sorting and writing papers or monograph to the very end" (Glaser, 1978, p.83).

I've read this. I swear, I've read this. Several times, in fact. But for the life of me, I didn't memo from the beginning of coding. And I don't know why.

Maybe its because I thought Corbin & Strauss (2008) did it in a non-classic way when she (Corbin) explained how to do it? Maybe I thought her memoing method was preconceiving?

Whatever.

(Yes, my attitude sucks right now. But I feel like I have a right. After all, this realization makes me think that I may very well not be ready to submit my dissertation for a conference scholarship next week.)

Data Coding Stuckness (An Email)

Excerpt from an email I sent to a classic GT methodology expert:

"I decided to code the fieldnotes from [some participants]. I did line-by-line (or idea-by-idea) coding. I've generated 200 codes and then started to categorize them. As I am categorizing, I am finding myself not knowing where I am headed. To solve the problem, I went back to your article on __________, which was helpful to re-read. Then realized I needed to re-read theoretical codes, and did that using Glaser 1978, 1998, 2005. Last night, I printed out all of my codes over 6 pieces of paper, and looked over them. I feel completely inundated! And I realized that I've only coded less than half of my fieldnotes from interviews! But once again, I find myself not knowing where I am headed! So, I was stuck, and I went to the literature, but now that I am back to my data again, I am stuck again.

I have to keep working today (while it is night-time for you in _______ ). While I await possible input from you, I will be asking myself Barney's (2004) questions for theoretical sensitivity ("what is the main concern" etc.) and just going back into the woodwork and relook at my data, code by code. It's exhausting to do this with so much time in-between. Each time I come back to the data with a week or so of lapse, it feels like I'm starting all over again."

Stuff The Loneliness!

I sent Big Name Editor my dissertation proposal last week.

This week he wrote back. His first three words were "very good proposal."

[insert smile]

And then he proceeded to warn me about how I've given myself "more work than needed" for a dissertation.

[insert frown]

As I sit here, having done only 30 minutes worth of actual work in 2 hours, I ask myself what is the value of having a "very good proposal" if it continues to remain a proposal.

- - -

Turning on my glass-half-full self...

I am starting to make some tiny progress dissertating again.

I went through the codes that I had generated, what... oh... 6 months ago?... and realized that they were rather dull. "Without grab" as Barney Glaser might put it.

After thinking through it a bit and rummaging through various Glaser books, I realized that the codes are a little on the no-grab side because I was coding without a whole bunch of theoretical codes in mind. I guess one might say that I am lacking in theoretical sensitivity?

So, I am re-reading about theoretical coding in Glaser (1978, 1998, 2005) to sensitize myself to theoretical codes. I plan to finish the reading these this week -- not study them but just read them and have them float around my head -- and then embark on my data next week.

I've identified two conferences to which I want to send my dissertation. One will be in the Americas and the other in Europe. I hope to bag the dissertation scholarships. But the deadlines are on December 14 and 15.

Time to stuff the loneliness and just work!

Hand-Coding Hardware

I was advised that sorting and memo-ing would be more easily done by hand. But I was not told as to the mechanics of that process.

After two days of trying out different things, I came to this:

• Export codes from MaxQDA into Excel
• Edit Excel file so that the relevant information fits onto a regular sized paper (make sure there are lines drawn between codes)
• Print on card-stock paper (I used regular paper the first time, and found them too flimsy to handle)
• Cut out each code into a separate strip (that's where the lines come in)

Then do the sorting/consolidating thing by asking these classic GT questions:

- What is the data a study of?

- What category does this incident indicate?

- What is actually happening in the data?

- What is the main concern being faced by the participants?

- What accounts for the continual resolving of this concern?

It was relatively easy to re-categorize them into higher level categories. (Except I'm not sure if that is what I am doing exactly.)

Then, I needed more hand-coding hardware. I took large envelopes and made little envelope strips out of them into which I inserted the various categories of codes.

I took a picture of a handful for "show and tell":

Ta dah! Clever, ne?

Well, now, I'm stuck. How do I go from my hand-coding back into software-coding? Because I still have a lot more data to code.

As they say in France, "zut alors!"

Classic Grounded Theory Community and The Drugless Trip

1. Classic Grounded Theory Community

I was surprised when I attended the Grounded Theory Seminar at how cordial and supportive the folks were there.

I have been feeling mired in coding over the last while and finally decided to reach out for help. I was able to connect with a newly-minted Ph.D. who had just finished his dissertation under Barney Glaser, and another scholar who is trying to fit mentors with classic GT learners like myself.

This afternoon, Newly-Minted Ph.D. called me from half-way across the country and spent 15 minutes on the phone with me, essentially assuring me that I am going about the process in the right way: messily!

I am so thankful for this classic GT community. I have a strong feeling I will enter into this community in fuller measure in time to come.

-----

2. The Drugless Trip

Judith Holton (2007) in her chapter entitled The Coding Process and Its Challenges, in the Sage Handbook of Grounded Theory, explained the difference between non-classic GT and classic GT:

"Various scholars within the qualitative paradigm [read: non-classic GT] have put forth strategies and guidelines for the coding process (citations). By comparison, the procedures espoused by classic grounded theorists may initially appear loose and perhaps even messy or confusing. These procedures as originally developed by Glaser and Strauss (1967) and extensively elaborated in Glaser's subsequent work (1978, 1992, 1998, 2001, 2003, 2005; Glaser & Holton, 2004) do require the researcher to grapple with both chaos and control. The chaos is in tolerating the uncertainty and subsequent regression of not knowing in advance and of remaining open to what emerges through the diligent, controlled, often tedious application of the method's synchronous and iterative processes of line-by-line coding, constant comparison for interchangeability of indicators, and theoretical sampling for core emergence and theoretical saturation. This discipline is simultaneously complemented by requiring the theorist to remain open to the innate creativity in preconscious processing of conceptual ideation and theoretical integration; a creativity characterized by the exhilaration of eureka sparks of discovery; what Glaser (1978, 1998) calls the drugless trip [emphasis added]" (p. 273).

So, I need to let go and embrace the chaos. Only then will I discover the eureka of the drugless trip.

Now stare long and deep into the picture below...

"Successioning"

I am having a mini-eureka experience!

:silly grin: