Grounded Theory Research

The purpose of this paper is threefold: to describe grounded theory research strategies, to present a summary of several studies in education that have followed this approach, and to explore the potential uses of the grounded theory techniques in curriculum theory generation. The paper is arranged into six parts. In the first and second parts of the paper the background for grounded theory research is discussed. Primarily a pragmatic, inductive approach, it is a comparative method which alternates data collection and data analysis. Before any hypotheses are defined, data are collected, coded, and arranged into concepts. Then, an analysis of these concepts is made to develop working hypotheses and provide direction for the next stage of data collection. Alternating states of data collection and analysis follow in a refining process. The third part of the paper briefly describes several studies that have been don