Grounded Theory

Grounded theory is a qualitative research method developed by the sociologists Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss and set out in their 1967 book The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Rather than beginning with an existing hypothesis derived from prior theory and then collecting data specifically to test it, grounded theory works in the reverse direction: a researcher collects data, most often through interviews, observation or documents, and develops theoretical concepts and explanations directly and inductively out of close, systematic analysis of that data itself, so that the resulting theory is described as grounded in the material rather than imposed on it in advance. The method relies on a process of open coding, in which the researcher labels recurring concepts and patterns as they emerge from the data, followed by constant comparison, in which new data is continually compared against categories already identified to refine, expand or revise them, with data collection and analysis proceeding together in repeated cycles rather than as two separate, sequential stages. Glaser and Strauss developed the method partly in reaction to what they saw as an overreliance in mid-twentieth-century sociology on grand, abstract theorizing disconnected from close empirical observation. Grounded theory has since become one of the most widely used qualitative research methods across sociology and other social sciences, and it later split into somewhat differing versions as Glaser and Strauss themselves developed divergent views on how strictly the method should proceed.