Powerpoint

2. • Understand and describe theoretical and methodological
assumptions underlying qualitative research
• Distinguish between quantitative and qualitative approaches
to research and data
• Formulate qualitative research questions
• Recognise when and where to use qualitative research
methods
• Make practical and logistic decisions in preparation for
undertaking qualitative research
• Develop and apply basic study instruments for collection of
qualitative data
• Record and manage qualitative data Prepare qualitative data
for analysis

3. A - POVERTY
• The World Bank's poverty definition says, "A person is considered
poor if his or her income level fall below some minimum level
necessary to meet basic needs.” It sets this minimum level, or
international poverty line, as living on less than $1.90 a day.
• Relative poverty considers your location and what it means to be poor
in a particular society. It measures if your income falls below the
minimum amount needed for you to maintain the average standard of
living in the society you live in.
• On the other hand, the World Bank defines poverty in absolute terms.
Rather than measuring poverty against the rest of the population,
poverty is measured against a fixed standard of living. In October
2015 the World Bank set a new global poverty line at $1.90 a day.

4. B- POVERTY
• For a poor person everything is terrible - illness,
humiliation, shame. We are cripples; we are afraid of
everything; we depend on everyone. No one needs us.
We are like garbage that everyone wants to get rid
of.”— a blind woman from Tiraspol, Moldova
• “Poverty is like living in jail, living under bondage,
• waiting to be free.” — a saying from Jamaica
“Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is
being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty
is not having access to school and not knowing how
to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the
future, living one day at a time.”

5. C - POVERTY

6. • a given social phenomenon has different
dimensions, and
• these dimensions can be captured through
different lenses.
• By lens, we mean here the ways in which a
researcher frames what she/he is looking for with
the help of a theory and theoretical assumptions.
• These assumptions, in turn, shape the choice of
methods that generate what is considered valid
data.

7. • Research of any type is a cyclical rather than a
linear process; methodological choices and
methods themselves are not neutral but are
always influenced by the assumptions you make
about your subject of study.
• Your use of theory is related to your training, your
reading of the relevant literature, your political
positioning and so on – in short, what you hold to
be a valid picture or explanation for the
phenomenon under study.

9. • Quantitative and qualitative approaches can be understood
by contrasting the differences between two philosophical
positions about the state of reality: positivism and
constructivism.
• Quantitative research, in general, holds a more positivist
view of the world; it suggests that reality is something
tangible that can be objectively measured with the help of
observational and experimental methods.
• Qualitative research generally adheres (although not
always) to a constructivist view of the world, one that
suggests that reality is in the eye of the beholder; in other
words, that there is no single reality for a given
phenomenon, but multiple, relative dimensions of reality
which can only be partially captured using subjective,
naturalistic methods.

10. • Quantitative methods provide a broad picture
when used to collect data on health, risk, illness,
and health-seeking behaviour.
• They help to answer descriptive questions such
as: What is going on? What is the scope of the
problem? How is the problem changing over
time? They are also used to assess similarities,
differences, and associations (for example, of a
risk factor with a given illness) in the data
through statistical analysis.
• It is important to recognize that the quantitative
researcher has to make fixed decisions about
what she/he is going to measure and compare.

11. • Qualitative research on the other hand, does not
take categories of health, risk, and illness for
granted. Instead the qualitative researcher tries to
ascertain how people who experience these
conditions themselves define what they are going
through, when they decide to seek treatment,
what happens when they seek treatment, how
their experience of illness impinges on their lives
and so on.

12. Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants
of health-related states or events (including disease), and the
application of this study to the control of diseases and other
health problems. Various methods can be used to carry out
epidemiological investigations: surveillance and descriptive
studies can be used to study distribution; analytical studies are
used to study determinants.

13. • As a qualitative researcher working in health
• you will pay close attention to the subject’s
• social reality – social ties, ‘culture’, economic
• and environmental conditions etc. – and how
• this reality shapes the ways in which people
talk about and experience health and illness.
You will focus, for example, on:

14. • Experiences of illness, or of interactions with different health care
providers. Listening to people’s experiences provides stories or ‘narratives’,
which are the data needed to understand the nature and complexity of
illness and health-seeking episodes and the factors affecting them
• Knowledge and understanding of a given issue, for example people’s
understanding of the body and health in a certain cultural context, which
influences their interpretation of an illness and how it was caused, and also
the course of action they have taken to treat the illness
• Meanings derived by people based on their knowledge and experience.
People attach meaning to things, events, relationships and the world at
large to make sense of their lives and their experiences. For example, if
they are diagnosed as HIV-positive, they are likely to attach a great deal of
meaning to this, based on the ways in which HIV is conceptualised in their
particular setting: they may feel that life is not worth pursuing any more,
that they have failed their close relatives, or that they are somehow impure
and that their social status has collapsed; or they may reconstruct their self
image - it can give them new meaning and purpose in life.

15. • Explanations and rationale given by people to justify their decisions and actions - the ‘whys’
and ‘hows’ of people’s actions and responses to events that affect them. For example a person
with diabetes may have frequent experiences of hypoglycaemia following his/her regulardaily
activities, which means s/he decides to maintain a higher blood sugar than recommended at
the clinic, for safety and to avoid the nuisance of low blood sugar. This is a rational decision
from the patient’s point of view. People explain their decisions and course of action as being
beneficial and ‘making sense’ in their everyday life context
• Social institutions (norms and rules)that govern people’s lives and dictate expectations and
behavioural norms can also be derived from qualitative data. For example, in most societies
there are ‘rules’ about courtship, marriage and childbirth that people are expected to adhere
to, for example: no sex before marriage; seeking the father’s permission for marriage;
payment of dowry or bride-wealth; the importance placed on having children to sustain the
kinship line; the expectation that wives should meet the sexual demands of their husbands,
and so on. Of course these ‘rules’ are not always followed – people have sex before marriage
and outside marriage, they may not pay bride-wealth. However, norms still influence their
own lives and how they judge others who deviate from the norms
• Social processes, that involve how people communicate and interact to fulfill social goals, for
example, how people negotiate, bargain and make decisions within a household - decisions
about where to take a child for treatment, or decisions about how to allocate money to
different priorities. Also, there are questions about how and when people choose to act
collectively based on what they experience as a shared condition, for example, in a show of
solidarity, or in the form of a self-help group, or as a way to more effectively access support
or resources

16. Key features of qualitative methodology
As suggested above, qualitative research is humanistic because it focuses on the
personal, subjective, and experiential basis of knowledge and practice. It is holistic
because it seeks to situate the meaning of particular behaviours and ways of doing
things in a given context (as opposed to isolating these as a quantitative researcher
would). These features influence two other characteristics of the qualitative
approach. Qualitative researchers are constantly trying to make sense of what they
see and hear in a specific context; their approach to understanding what is going on
is interpretive, in other words, their aim is more often to explain rather than to
merely describe. Finally, as we have already said, how the data gathered on
people’s experiences are interpreted depends much on the researcher’s theoretical
presuppositions and background. Qualitative researchers, more than quantitative
researchers, generally adopt a reflexive position vis-à-vis their research, in other
words, they are explicit about how their personal history and biography shape the
questions asked, the framing of the research and the presentation of data.
As we will see in later, these four characteristics of qualitative research require a
different methodological approach. Methods in qualitative research are generally
open-ended and in-depth, and naturalistic, that is, they attempt to study things,
people and events in a natural (non-experimental) setting.
The methodology is flexible because it may use multiple methods to examine the same
question or area (‘triangulation’), and iterative. Iteration refers to questions or
studies that are repeated over time with the same informant or group of informants.
This is feasible when a researcher has access to the same informant over the course
of a study, and is useful when new questions arise, or the researcher wants to go
back and check some of the data s/he has analysed.

17. • Iterative methods are also useful when a subject is relatively
unexplored or sensitive, and may require more time to develop
rapport, trust, and the ability to probe further ().
• Finally, qualitative research can complement quantitative data.
For example, a qualitative phase of research might precede
quantitative data collection in order to explore a new area, to
generate hypotheses, or to help develop data collection
instruments. In turn, qualitative research might follow a
quantitative phase of research in order to elucidate and explain
the ‘numbers’ or to probe the issues more in depth with a
smaller number of individuals.

18. Approaches in qualitative research

19. Type of
Approach
Defining Features Data Collection
Implications
1.
Phenomenology
Focuses on individual
experiences, beliefs, and
perceptions
Text used as a proxy for
human experience
Questions and observations are aimed
at drawing out individual experiences and
perceptions.
· In focus groups, group experiences
and normative perceptions are typically
sought out.
· In-depth interviews and focus groups
are ideal methods for collecting
phenomenological data.
2. Ethnography Oriented toward studying
shared meanings and
practices (i.e., culture)
Emphasizes the emic
perspective.
· Can have a
contemporary or historical
focus.
Questions and observations are
generally related to social and cultural
processes and shared meanings within a
given group of people.
Traditionally, it is associated with long-
term fieldwork, but some aspects are
employed in applied settings.
Participant observation is well suited to
ethnographic inquiry.

20. Type of Approach Defining Features Data Collection
Implications
3. Inductive
Thematic Analysis
Draws on inductive analytic
methods (this would be same
for Grounded Theory below
as well).
· Involves identifying and
coding emergent themes
within data.
· Most common analytic
approach used in qualitative
inquiry.
ITA requires generation of free-flowing
data.
· In-depth interviews and focus groups are
the most common data collection
techniques associated with ITA.
· Notes from participant observation
activities can be analyzed using ITA, but
interview/focus group data are better.
4. Case Study Analysis of one to several
cases that are unique with
respect to the research topic
· Analysis primarily focused
on exploring the unique
quality.
Cases are selected based on a unique
(often rarely observed) quality.
· Questions and observations should
focus on, and delve deeply into, the unique
feature of interest.

21. Type of Approach Defining Features Data Collection
Implications
5. Grounded
Theory
· Inductive data collection
and analytic methods.
· Uses systematic and
exhaustive comparison of
text segments to build
thematic structure and
theory from a body of text.
· Common analytic
approach in qualitative
studies.
As above, in-depth interviews and focus
groups are the most common data
collection techniques associated with GT.
· Sample sizes for grounded theory are
more limited than for ITA because the
analytic process is more intensive and time
consuming.
Note: Many researchers incorrectly label
all inductive thematic analyses “grounded
theory,” as a default. Technically, they are
not the same thing.
6. Discourse/
Conversation
Analysis
Study of “naturally
occurring” discourse
Can range from
conversation to public events
to existing documents.
 Text and structures within
discourse used as objects of
analysis.
These linguistically focused methods
often use existing documents as data.
· Conversations between individuals that
spontaneously emerge within group
interviews or focus groups may be studied
but are not preferred.
· Participant observation is conducive to
discourse analysis if narratives from public
events can be recorded.

22. Type of Approach Defining Features Data Collection
Implications
7. Narrative
Analysis
Narratives (storytelling)
used as source of data.
· Narratives from one or
more sources (e.g.,
interviews, literature, letters,
diaries).
If generating narratives (through in-depth
interviews), then questions/ tasks need to
be aimed at eliciting stories and the
importance those stories, hold for
participants, as well as larger cultural
meaning.
8. Mixed Methods Defined as integrating
quantitative and qualitative
research methods in one
study.
· Two most common
designs are sequential and
concurrent.
Collection of qualitative data in a mixed
methods study can be informed from a
wide range of theoretical perspectives and
analytic approaches.
· Researchers must specify up front, and
in detail, how, when, and why qualitative
and quantitative datasets will be integrated.

23. Phenomenology
• Strauss and Corbin (1998) define methodology as “a way of thinking
about and studying social reality” (p. 3) while method is “a set of
procedures and techniques for gathering and analyzing data”.
• A phenomenological inquiry “is an attempt to deal with inner
experiences unprobed in everyday life” (Merriam, 2002, p. 7).
• The modern phenomenological method is credited to German
philosopher and mathematician, Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) whose
work evolved during the ideological turmoil following World War I.
• Husserl advocated through his research that objects exist
independently and that observations and experiences involving these
objects are reliable suggesting an individual’s perceptions are
accurate representations of their consciousness. The
phenomenological foundation of this study “aims at attaining a
profound understanding of the nature or meaning of our daily
experiences.

24. The present study explored how students experience and
understand the university presidency: -
• a phenomenon of interest to study is identified
• - the researcher recognizes and specifies the broad
philosophical assumptions of phenomenology
• - data are collected from the individuals who have
experienced the phenomenon
• - the participants are asked two broad, general questions :
what have you experienced in terms of the phenomenon? what
context or situations have typically influenced or affected your
experiences of the phenomenon?
• - data analysis occurs through organized “clusters of meaning”
and from these clusters evolves both textural and structural
descriptions of the experience which leads to a composite
description that presents the “essence” of the phenomenon

25. • The total sample for this study could have
involved up to 16 university student
participants chosen from two comparably
small sized, public, four year, and primarily
undergraduate teaching universities.

26. Some Interview Questions
• Describe the president for me.
• Talk to me about your interactions with the president.
• What do you think about the interactions you have with the
president?
• Are these interactions with the president important to you?
• How do feel about the amount of interactions with the
president?
• Would you like to experience more or less and why?
• Has your interaction with the president influenced the way
you think about the university?
• What are some examples?
• Are there other types of interactions, and if so, what are they?
• Are there others in university leadership positions you
connect or identify with? Who and why?

27. • 1. The researcher thoroughly reads and rereads the transcribed
interviews to identify with the data and to acquire a sense of
each individual and his or her background and experiences.
• 2. From the transcripts the researcher identifies significant
statements which pertain directly to the proposed phenomenon.
• 3. The researcher develops interpretive meanings of each of the
significant statements. The researcher rereads the research
protocols to ensure the original description is evident in the
interpretive meanings.
• 4. The interpretive meanings are arranged into clusters, which
allow themes to emerge. The researcher seeks validation, avoids
repetitive themes, and notes any discrepancies during this
process.
Steps in Analysis

28. • 5. The themes are then integrated into an exhaustive description.
The researcher also refers the theme clusters back to the
protocols to substantiate them.
• 6. The researcher produces a concise statement of the exhaustive
description and provides a fundamental statement of
identification also referred to as the overall essence of the
experience.
• 7. The reduced statement of the exhaustive description is
presented to the study’s participants in order to verify the
conclusions and the development of the essence statement. If
discrepancies are noted, the researcher should go back through
the significant statements, interpretive meanings, and themes in
order to address the stated concerns.

29. Ethnography

30. • Street Corner Society is one of a handful of works that can
justifiably be called classics of sociological research.
William Foote Whyte’s account of the Italian American
slum he called "Cornerville"—Boston’s North End—has
been the model for urban ethnography for fifty years.
By mapping the intricate social worlds of street gangs and
"corner boys," Whyte was among the first to demonstrate
that a poor community need not be socially disorganized.
His writing set a standard for vivid portrayals of real people
in real situations. And his frank discussion of his
methodology—participant observation—has served as an
essential casebook in field research for generations of
students and scholars.

31. How we define ethnography?
• Ethnography is the art and science used to describe a group
or culture (Fetterman, 1998). According to Angrosino
(2007), ethnographers search for predictable patterns in the
lived human experiences by carefully observing and
participating in the lives of those under study.
• Ethnography may also involve a full immersion of the
researcher in the day-to-day lives or culture of those under
study.
• Ethnography as a method has certain distinctive
characteristics (Angrosino, 2007). First, it is conducted on-
site or in a naturalistic setting in which real people live.
Second, it is personalized since you as the researcher are
both observer and participant in the lives of those people.

32. Why Do We Conduct Ethnography?
• Ethnography can be conducted entirely by one individual.
• It is longitudinal in nature, allowing you as the researcher to
observe and record changes over time.
• It can be carried out almost at any place.
• It focuses on working with others rather than treating them as
objects.
• It provides you with a detailed and rich database for further
investigation and writing.
• You can make the research not only interesting but adventurous.
• It requires no expensive or elaborate tools or equipment.
• It may present you with an opportunity to learn and use another
language.

33.  It draws upon your personal skills and strengths to advantage.
 You often have exclusive domain or sole responsibility in the
chosen setting or site.
 Your role is recognized.
 It offers you an opportunity to integrate professional and personal
life.
 It allows you to get an insider’s view of reality. It can provide
deep insightful data.
 It can be used to study marginalized groups of people closed to
other forms of research.
 It allows you to collect data in a realistic or naturalistic setting in
which people act naturally, focusing on both verbal and nonverbal
behaviors.

34. How Do We Collect Data In
Ethnography?
• There are three modes of data collection in ethnography:
observation, interviewing and archival research (Angrosino,
2007):
• Observation: Participant observation is unique in that it
combines the researcher’s participation in the lives of the
people under study while also maintaining a professional
distance (Fetterman, 1998). observation is the act of
perceiving the activities and interrelationships of people in the
field setting.
• Interviewing: Interviewing is the process of directing a
conversation to collect information (.
• Archival research: This is the analysis of existing materials
stored for research, service or other purposes officially and
unofficially.

35. What Are the Stages in Conducting
Ethnography?
• Singleton and Straits (2005) identified the following stages in field research:
• Problem formulation: Defining the main focus of the study by formulating
the problem about which you wish to learn more.
• Selecting a research setting: The first question is knowing and deciding
where to begin. The setting should permit clear observation. It is also helpful
to select a setting that you can readily fit in but this does not mean that you
are intimately familiar with it.
• Gaining access: How do you get into a group that you wish to study? You
may need to seek formal permission which can be facilitated if you have a
friend who can vouch for you. You can also get your foot in the door if you
first participate in the group as a volunteer and not as a researcher.
• Presenting oneself: You need to decide how you will present yourself to
those in the field. Will you be conducting covert research? What roles will
you need to adopt and relate to others? How active will you be participating
in other people’s lives? If you present yourself as a researcher, will others be
able to accept you in their daily lives?

36. • Gathering and recording information: Sometimes it can
be difficult to record and gather data at the same time.
What are the types of information that should be
recorded or taken as field notes?
• If you cannot fully record your observations while you
are in the field, what should you do?
• Always carry a notepad for brief jottings. Sometimes
there is no alternative but to wait and record
observation after you leave the setting. You should
record the observations as soon as possible to minimize
recall problems. You may also rely on equipment such
as audio-recorders, video cameras, etc.

37. • According to Singleton and Straits (2005), your field notes or
detailed descriptive accounts of any observation made during a
given period should include the following elements:
• Running description: This is the record of the day’s
observations. The objective is to record accurately what you
observe. You should also avoid analyzing persons or events
while in the field because there is no time and it will interfere
with your observation of what is going on. What are things to
watch for? The setting, the people, individual actions and
activities, group behaviors, and perspectives.
• Forgotten episodes: These are accounts of previous episodes
that you have forgotten but are remembering again while you are
in the field.

38. What Should We Do with All the
Data?
• Coding for descriptive labels: Since the materials collected are
in the form of written words, those words must first be
grouped into meaningful categories or descriptive labels, then
organized to compare, contrast and identify patterns. Firstlevel
coding is done to reduce the data to a manageable size. Before
one begins the coding process, it may be helpful to formulate
basic domains that can categorize a broad range of
phenomena, for example, setting, types of activities, events,
relationships and social structure, general perspectives,
strategies, process, meanings and repeated phrases.
• Sorting for patterns: The next step is to sort or group the
descriptive labels into smaller sets. One begins to develop
themes from those groupings and a sense of possible
connections between the information.

39. • Identifying outliers: Cases, situations, events or
settings that do not “fit” with the rest of the findings
may be identified. These cases should be kept in mind
as the different steps in the research process are
developed, for example, should we collect more
information about those cases?
• Generalizing constructs and theories: The patterns or
connected findings are related to theories in order to
make sense of the rich and complex data collected.
Existing literature is also reviewed.
• Memoing with reflective remarks: Memos are
insights or ideas that one has about the data. They are
written so that the researcher can know if anything
needs further clarification or testing. It also helps the
researcher to keep track of their assumptions, biases
and opinions throughout the whole research process.

40. Grounded Theory

41. • Grounded theory was originally developed by two
sociologists, Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss. They
were unhappy about the way in which existing theories
dominated sociological research.
• They argued that researchers needed a method that
would allow them to move from data to theory, so that
new theories could emerge. Such theories would be
specific to the context in which they had been
developed.
• They would be ‘grounded’ in the data from which they
had emerged rather than rely on analytical constructs,
categories or variables from pre-existing theories.
• Grounded theory, therefore, was designed to open up a
space for the development of new, contextualized
theories.

42. Basic principles of grounded theory
• Grounded theory involves the progressive identification and
integration of categories of meaning from data. It is both the
process of category identification and integration (as method)
and its product (as theory).
• Grounded theory as method provides us with guidelines on how
to identify categories, how to make links between categories
and how to establish relationships between them.
• Grounded theory as theory is the end-product of this process; it
provides us with an explanatory framework with which to
understand the phenomenon under investigation.
• To identify, refine and integrate categories, and ultimately to
develop theory, grounded theory researchers use a number of
key strategies, including constant comparative analysis,
theoretical sampling and theoretical coding.

43. Categories
• These designate the grouping together of instances (events, processes, occurrences)
that share central features or characteristics with one another. Categories can be at
a low level of abstraction, in which case they function as descriptive labels.
• For example, references to ‘anxiety’, ‘anger’ and ‘pity’ can be grouped together
under the category heading of ‘emotions’. As grounded theory analysis progresses,
the researcher is able to identify categories at a higher level of abstraction. These
categories are analytic rather than descriptive. They interpret, rather than simply
label, instances of phenomena.
• For example, references to diverse activities such as getting drunk, jogging and
writing poetry could be categorized as ‘escape’ if they appear to share the objective
of distracting the individual from thinking about a problem. Both descriptive and
analytic categories are based upon the identification of ‘relations of similarity and
difference’; however, they function at different levels of abstraction.
• Category identification in grounded theory is very different from content analysis,
with which it should never be confused. Content analysis makes use of categories
that are defined before data analysis commences and which are designed to be
mutually exclusive. This is to say, the same data cannot be allocated to more than
one category. By contrast, categories in grounded theory emerge from the data,
they are not mutually exclusive and they evolve throughout the research process.

44. Coding
• This is the process by which categories are identified. In the early stages of
analysis, coding is largely descriptive. Here, descriptive labels are attached
to discrete instances of phenomena. New, low-level categories emerge
frequently as a result.
• As coding progresses, the researcher is able to identify higher-level
categories that systematically integrate low-level categories into meaningful
units. In other words, analytical categories are introduced. Because grounded
theory aims to develop new, context-specific theories, category labels should
not be derived from existing theoretical formulations but should be grounded
in the data instead.
• Ideally, category labels should be in vivo – that is, they should utilize words
or phrases used by the participants in the study. This helps the researcher to
avoid importing existing theory into the analysis. Theoretical coding
involves the application of a coding paradigm to the data.
• A coding paradigm sensitizes the researcher to particular ways in which
categories may be linked with one another. Different versions of grounded
theory subscribe to different coding paradigms.

45. Constant comparative analysis
• This ensures that the coding process maintains its momentum by moving back and
forth between the identification of similarities among and differences between
emerging categories.
• Having identified a common feature that unites instances of a phenomenon, the
researcher needs to refocus on differences within a category in order to be able to
identify any emerging subcategories.
• The earlier example of ‘emotion’ as a category may be expanded to illustrate this
process. I suggested that references to ‘anxiety’, ‘anger’ and ‘pity’ could give rise to
the category ‘emotion’. Further instances of this category could be ‘joy’, ‘jealousy’
and ‘hate’. Comparing the various instances of emotion allows us to construct
subcategories of emotion, such as emotions that require an object (e.g. hate and
jealousy) and those that do not (e.g. joy and anxiety).
• Constant comparative analysis ensures that the researcher does not merely build
up categories but also breaks them down again into smaller units of meaning. In
this way, the full complexity and diversity of the data can be recognized, and any
homogenizing impulse can be counteracted. The ultimate objective of constant
comparative analysis is to link and integrate categories in such a way that all
instances of variation are captured by the emerging theory.

46. • Negative case analysis This ensures that the researcher continues
to develop the emerging theory in the light of the evidence.
Having identified a category, or a linkage between categories,
grounded theory researchers need to look for ‘negative cases’ –
that is, instances that do not fit. The identification of such
instances allows the researcher to qualify and elaborate the
emerging theory, adding depth and density to it, so that it is able
to capture the full complexity of the data on which it is based.
• Theoretical sensitivity This is what moves the researcher from a
descriptive to an analytic level. In grounded theory, the researcher
interacts with the data. That is, (s)he asks questions of the data,
which are in turn modified by the emerging answers. Each
emerging category, idea, concept or linkage informs a new look at
the data to elaborate or modify the original construct. The
researcher engages with the data by asking questions, making
comparisons and looking for opposites. This may involve going
back to source to collect further data. Data collection and coding
are both part of the process of grounded theory analysis.

47. • Theoretical sampling This involves collecting further data in the light of
categories that have emerged from earlier stages of data analysis.
Theoretical sampling means checking emerging theory against reality by
sampling incidents that may challenge or elaborate its developing claims.
While the earlier stages of grounded theory require maximum openness
and flexibility to identify a wide range of predominantly descriptive
categories, theoretical sampling is concerned with the refinement and,
ultimately, saturation (see below) of existing, and increasingly analytic,
categories.
• Theoretical saturation Ideally, the process of data collection and data
analysis in grounded theory continues until theoretical saturation has been
achieved. In other words, the researcher continues to sample and code data
until no new categories can be identified, and until new instances of
variation for existing categories have ceased to emerge. At this point, a set
of categories and subcategories captures the bulk of the available data.
However, theoretical saturation functions as a goal rather than a reality.
This is because even though we may (and ought to) strive for saturation of
our categories, modification of categories or changes in perspective are
always possible.

48. Memo-writing
• This is an important part of the grounded theory method. Throughout the
process of data collection and analysis, the researcher maintains a written
record of theory development. This means writing definitions of categories
and justifying labels chosen for them, tracing their emergent relationships
with one another, and keeping a record of the progressive integration of
higher- and lower-level categories. Memos will also show up changes of
direction in the analytic process and emerging perspectives, as well as
provide reflections on the adequacy of the research question.
• As a result, memos provide information about the research process itself as
well as about the substantive findings of the study. Memos can be long or
short, abstract or concrete, integrative (of earlier memos or ideas) or
original, use words or diagrams (e.g. flowcharts). All memos, however,
should be dated, contain a heading and state which sections of the data they
were inspired by.