Ontological Grounded Theory Summary

In this article, the authors explain about the evolution of the constructivist grounded theory by tracing the historical development of the methodology. It is a popular methodology in psychology, education and nursing. The authors also demonstrate the difference between traditional and constructivist grounded theory through discussing their common characteristics. Such a comprehensive discussion broadens my theoretical knowledge and makes me confident to apply this methodology efficiently. Being a professor of nursing, Mills focuses her research on primary health care, rural health workforce and health service strengthening, and nursing education. Therefore, Mills and her colleagues refer to many nursing publications in this article. The ontological
Being a method with iterative study design, data analysis includes the coding process, repeated comparison of data, and further data collection until no new idea emerges. The authors use the terms “traditional” and “evolved” grounded theory to define the work of “Glaser” and “Strauss and Corbin” respectively, for clarity. Glaser believes that truth and reality emerges from the data alone, so that researchers need to be a blank slate when entering the field of inquiry. He argues against the review of literatures to avoid contaminating the analysis. He applies the simple coding technique for data analysis and uses three forms of codes: open, theoretical and constant comparative. These codes are used to develop initial codes from the data, explain the properties of the codes and describe the method of constant comparison. With such a coding process, core categories emerge and are constructed in their own accords in traditional grounded theory. Strauss and Corbin believe that that grounded theory is the act of constructing theory through subjective interpretations by researchers. Thus, evolved grounded theory recognizes the bias, but maintains the objectivity. Strauss and Corbin use several analysis techniques such as questioning, flip-flop technique and far-out comparisons to increase the researcher’s reflexivity to the data. In my opinion, these techniques provoke the lateral thinking of the researchers and increase personal engagement to the data. Strauss and Corbin suggest that the literature review is helpful by providing another voices and similar phenomena to the theoretical construction. They use the complex coding method (axial coding) with diagram aids such as flowcharts, conditional/consequential matrix and integrative diagramming to “examine the complex relationships between categories and their properties”, and