Theorising data
The quality of theorising data is key in doctoral research.
See Dean’s two papers to explore what it means to theorise something, for
example application of Foucault’s ideas to policies surrounding safeguarding in
sports coaching.
Rorty stats that “All we have is interpretation”, so all we
have is differing interpretations of experiences. Should we strive towards
truth, in its absence.
Jean-Luc Nancy
explored the concept of “being with”: we cannot exist as individuals, as we are
social beings. Our identity emerges through our interaction with others.
Identity captures our engaging with others within particular contexts.
Judith
Butler discussed performativity – we perform differently in different
contexts. There is no ‘essence’ of ourselves.
We bring meaning to data – it is a process of construction
of meaning. The data does not exist without the meaning and the significance we
put on it. Context is of key significance, and helps us to produce meaning.
There is construction of the context between interviewer and interviewee. This links to reflexivity – the narrative of who we are, our aspects of self and our connections to the research.
There was a brief discussion over research data anomalies –
it is of great interest to explore anomalous data rather than to try and ignore
it. Why is it there? What does it mean in relation to the agreeing data?
Who we are and how we see influences our perception of truth. Our interpretations cause us to see the world differently. We privilege some things and deselect others – perception is very individual.
We need to relate this to our ontological and epistemological position.
Ontology is existence.
If truth is a plural concept, the ontological status is
relativism. Interpretation is critical. We are not dealing with the ontological
realism of a singularity of truth but a plurality of multiple truths.
BUT – does this mean ‘anything goes’? – The tutor asked us
to question whether this was actually important. We always have to live with
uncertainty, so why not with uncertainty over research. However, there are
certain truths which hold sway at different times – these are not foundational
but are based on community debate as to what is temporarily/provisionally held
to count as ‘truth’. However, within this community, there may be different perspectives,
with tensions between them. Therefore, there is no total agreement on interpretation/truth.
Other key issues:
Meaning does not reside in the data itself – meaning is
brought into being and partly constructed through our interaction with it. The
sense we make of data is affected by what we bring (culturally, socially,
historically located) i.e. CONTEXT.
Discovery as a metaphor for research is inaccurate. It is
more a construction and creation than a discovery. For example phenomenological
hermeneutics acknowledge the importance of ‘self’ in the construction and
telling of the ‘other’ – self and other are conjoined.We cannot bracket off our subjectivity but we must embrace it – this is who I am and this affects how I understand and interpret.
Heidegger suggests that we are already located in
presuppositions – ie our ‘being in the world’ – our social, historical,
cultural context.
Nancy: ‘being with’ locates you – who you are with affects
who you are.
Michael
Polanyi discussed ‘tacit knowledge’: knowledge we cannot explicitly explain
but that we have. We cannot render a feeling fully explicit (e.g. my choice of
IPA?)
Other issues raised:
The criteria with which our research is judged: where I position
myself in relation to onto-epistemic issues. I
need to articulate how I want to be judged – I will need to discuss the criteria
for judgement.
Conventional criteria do not apply in qualitative contexts.
Remodelling of the criteria to include, for example, authenticity and
verisimilitude are still ‘fudging’ the issue – still appealing to accuracy but
by different names. We only have the power of rhetoric to take the reader into
your word – you need resonance with the reader, and this will not always
happen.
What you write will only ever ring true for some people.
Validity shifts from accuracy to a plain that recognises the importance of
resonance and experience – connection to the information. This is not a
simplistic correspondence, such as ‘does the report accurately represent
reality?’
This shifts the test of validity – the truth of the account
partly resides in the standpoint of the reader. Truth isn’t solely controlled
by the authorial account.
Dean is
going to send out a paper on the flexibility of validity.
Presentation (PowerPoint) on Heidegerrian Phenomenology
Slide 1:
Ò … utilises a hermeneutic approach that is
fundamentally ontological
Ò This informs us of ‘how’ a ‘what’ is to be
treated, and is primarily methodological
Ò ‘what does this data mean’ becomes ‘how
is this data meaningful’?
The activity we took part in was fundamentally ontological –
we drew on our own being. The questions move from ‘what does this mean’ to ‘how
is this meaningful?’ – our interaction and construction bring meaning into
being.
Ò The
latter cannot be answered except in relation to Dasein (da – here; sein
– being)
Ò Thus,
descriptions are impossible without interpretation
Ò ‘the
meaning of phenomenological description as a method lies in interpretation’
(Heidegger 1962: 61).
Descriptions are impossible without interpretation and
construction of meaning. Our identities (plural rather than singular) are
exposed differently depending on our ‘being with’. Identities are contextually
located.
Slide 3:
Ò Being
and becoming are hermeneutic:
Ò ‘the phenomenology of Dasein is a hermeneutic
in the primordial significance of the word, where it designates this business
of interpreting’ (Heidegger 1962: 62).
Becoming: Being isn’t fixed – it is dynamic. We ‘become’
according to those around us – it is relational.
Slide 4:
Ò Interpretation
is ‘grounded in something we have in advance fore-having … we see in
advance fore-sight … and something we grasp in advance fore-conception
(Heidegger 1962: 193)
Ò The
implication for research is that data is analysed through these fore-structures
Ò Such
structures suggest that understanding is not ground in data but in what people
have in advance – the always already Being
‘Fore-having’ – we have ‘fore-conception’ – we analyse data
through these fore-structures. The understanding is not grounded in data but in
being and fore-having – i.e. we have preconceptions and ‘baggage’.
Therefore, research is always already theoretically
over-determined – we are always already theoretical as we are always already
schooled in some sense, e.g. through family, community, culture, tradition. We
cannot bracket that.
Ò Key
points
Ò The
object and subject of the world are inseparable
Ò Dasein is the Being that is
peculiar to humans who must paradoxically live in relationships while
simultaneously being ultimately alone with oneself
Ò To
understand the Other, a person’s behaviour or expressions, one has to study
that person in context
It is impossible to know when what is outside of ourselves
starts and what is internal begins in regard to interpretation. Interpretation
is an interaction but we cannot pin it down. We cannot recognise the extent of
our self. Ethically, this is very powerful as we as the author have to consider
equity, responsibility, whose voices we choose to privilege and whose we
silence.
Reflexivity involves engaging critically with what we
recognise as our position and subjectivity, to interrogate but we will always
fail as we cannot fully recognise the extent of our influence.
Reflexivity: positioning our professional values that are
shared with the contextualisation of the work.
Grounded Theory
Slide 1:
… addresses the ‘important enterprise of how the
discovery of theory from data - systematically obtained and analyzed in social
research - can be furthered’
Glaser, B.G. and Strauss, A.L (1967) The Discovery of
Grounded Theory: strategies for qualitative research, London: Aldine, p.1).
Glaser & Strauss (1967): The discovery of theory from
data
Theories from the study are based on data – theories emerged
from the data, i.e. the authors weren’t bringing anything to it – the data
drove the themes. This assumes that we enter the context of research without
baggage, in order to see what’s occurring. It assumes that no literature has
been read beforehand, there are no lenses to see through, allowing data to
drive theory production – data “springs forth”. BUT there is no acknowledgement
of a lens.
Slide 2:
— …
relies upon ‘a general method of comparative analysis’ (p.1)
‘we would all agree that in social research generating
theory goes hand in hand with verifying it’ (p.2).
This is problematic as it suggests that there is logical
induction. Karl Popper critiques logical induction through the black swan
story. There is no way of verifying a theory based on induction. There is
always the possibility of an anomaly in the next observation. We can only ever
falsify a theory rather than verify it.
How can we ever know how close we are to ‘the truth’? Verify
against what? We cannot know how near or far we are from a ‘truth’.
The categories we develop in our minds are influenced by our
framing of the context. We cannot verify it – if something (a theme) keeps
repeating itself, it is because we keep seeing it. We may not see other things.
There is a tension in grounded theory – it wants us to be
open-minded, inductive and generative BUT it is also seeking to verify – that is,
it is narrowing, reductive and deductive.
What are the external references allowing us to verify
something, other than keeping seeing the same thing? – affirmation of the self.
Slide 3:
— According
to Glaser and Strauss – grounded theory appeals to the ‘interrelated jobs of
theory in sociology:
(1) to
enable prediction and explanation of behaviour;
(2) to be useful in theoretical advance in sociology;
(3) to be usable in practical applications – prediction
and explanation should be able to give the
practitioner understanding and some control of situation;
(4) to provide a perspective on behaviour –
a stance to be taken towards data; and (5) to guide
and provide a style for research on particular areas
of behaviour’ (p.3).
“Prediction and explanation” come up several times in these
assumptions – these align with the key concepts of positivism. This holds to
the view that there is a ‘real view’ of the world – theory is developed on that
basis and we can remove our subjectivity, so in reality, GT is positivist.
Slide 5:
— Located
where? … possibly conceptual tensions?
— Used
in education research, nursing and organisational studies, but also elsewhere
— Has
much in common with ethnography, case study, action research
— Rejection
of a priori theorising – emergent theory
— Implicit
verification-ism
— Not
steeped in literature
— Inductive,
constructivist approach to data collection
— Imperative
to reach saturation, but why?
— Interaction
between data collection, analysis and theory building – ‘theory must “fit” the
situation being researched’ (p.3)
Features of grounded theory: It is unsure where it sits –
there are conceptual tensions. It rejects a priori theorising.
Slide 6:
— ‘Categories
must be readily (not forcibly) applicable to and indicated by the data under
study; by “work” we mean that they must be meaningfully relevant to and be able
to explain the behaviour under study
— …
categories are discovered by examination of the data’ (p. 3).
— ‘the
adequacy of a theory for sociology today cannot be divorced from the process by
which it is generated’ (p.5).
To generate theory…
GT suggests that the meaning/theme is already there, and is
not imposed by the self. But how can this be separate? We interact (with our
baggage) – they suggest that this doesn’t happen and that the categories are
there *before* our interaction.
Slide 8:
— ‘The
biographies of scientists are replete with stories of occasional flashes of
insight, of seminal ideas, garnered from sources outside the data. But the
generation of theory from such insights must then be brought into relation to
the data, or there is great danger that theory and the empirical world will
mismatch’ (p.6)
What is the ‘empirical world’ – we only know the phenomenal
one through our own senses and constructions.
NOTE: The tutor did mention the work of CHarmaz with regard
to grounded theory, but suggested that her developments took it away from
grounded theory and it was closer to phenomenology.
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