Análisis PESTE

Within this thesis, a qualitative methodology has been used to explore the research aims and to answer the research questions stated in Chapter One (section 1.11). Denzin and Lincoln (1994, p. 2) state that qualitative research is:

‘multi-method in focus, involving an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject matter. This means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret phenomena in terms

of the meanings people bring to them...Accordingly, qualitative research deploys a wide range of interconnected methods, hoping always to get a better fix on the subject matter at hand’.

This quote illustrates the appropriateness of a qualitative methodology for this study which is underpinned by a constructivist paradigm. The in-depth focus of the participant’s subjective experiences through qualitative research (Flick, 2014) is well aligned with the constructivist paradigm’s relativist and subjectivist underpinning and their concern with the participant’s unique perspectives and constructions of their experiences (Guba & Lincoln, 1989; Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

Furthermore, qualitative research’s focus on exploring and understanding the experiences of participants is well aligned with this study’s research aims and questions (see Chapter 1.11.), which were to explore the subjective experiences of carers and healthcare professionals. The use of a qualitative methodology is further supported through the extant research (Furniss, Loverseed, Lippold, & Dodd, 2012; Iacono, Bigby, Carling-Jenkins, & Torr, 2014; McLaughlin & Jones, 2010), which has illustrated its appropriateness and effectiveness for this research topic.

Within this research study a variation of original grounded theory (GT; Glaser & Strauss, 1967) was used: Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT; Charmaz, 2014). CGT, its methodological strategies, and the rationale for its application, will be explicated. However, to provide context for the use and rationale of this variation of GT, its historical development will first be critically explored.

2.5. The Development of Grounded Theory

GT was constructed during the 1960s, where quantitative methods had gained dominance within many disciplines, arising out of a positivistic stance. This dominance assumed a passive, unbiased researcher who played no role in creating data, and the existence of an external world separate from the researcher and their methods (Charmaz, 2014). During this period, original GT was developed with the publication of ‘The Discovery of Grounded Theory’ (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Through this publication, Glaser and Strauss questioned the established positivistic orthodoxy, the priority placed on verification of existing theories, and the development of theory by making deductions from priori assumptions and hypotheses (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Glaser and Strauss brought together two of sociology’s contrasting traditions: positivism and pragmatism. Glaser, through his Columbia University training in quantitative research, brought codifying to GT and the creation of middle-range theories; helping to demystifying the research process (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Charmaz, 2014). Middle-range theories explain a specific set of social phenomena and are grounded in the data; they contrast with grand theories, which explain phenomena at a societal level (Charmaz, 2006). Strauss, with his training in pragmatism and symbolic interactionism, brought ‘notions of human agency, emergent processes, social and subjective meanings, problem-solving practices, and the open-ended study of action’ (Charmaz, 2014, p. 9). Glaser and Strauss offered a systematic approach to qualitative research (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007); this is an enduring strength of GT: a clear step-by-step procedure, rendering it replicable. For the researcher, this systematic, inductive approach proved to be an appealing aspect and initial draw to GT as a methodology in this study. However, the theoretical underpinnings of the original GT produced a qualitative methodology with distinct positivist and objectivist

features (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007). These features resulted in ‘dispassionate empiricism, rigorous codified methods, emphasis on emergent discoveries, and its somewhat ambiguous specialised language that echoes quantitative methods’ (Charmaz, 2006, p.7). Specifically, its positioning of an objective researcher, uninfluenced by the research process, and being value-free throughout the research process, so not influencing the data collection and analysis, is not compatible with the constructivist underpinnings of this research study and the researcher’s own belief.

Through the 1960s, there was a growing body of critique for quantification within sociology (Blumer, 1954; Mills, 1959; Kuhn, 1962) and major epistemological shifts; a social constructionist challenge to the positivist orthodox (Berger & Luckmann,1966; Garfinkel, 1967). Social constructionism claims that people construct their realities and that these are multiple; this contrasts with positivism which believed there was one reality to be discovered. Through social constructionism, knowledge and experiences are a construction of interactions, which are sustained through everyday social processes, and are historically and culturally specific (Burr, 2015). However, up until the early 1980s, the GT method was scarcely influenced by these developments (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007). This resulted in GT being criticised for epistemological naivety; it failed to adapt to the changing epistemological stance within social research.

2.5.1. Post-positivist grounded theory.

Since its development, and in more recent times, GT has been advanced through differing variations. All variations share several basic strategies, including: analysing the data at an early stage; conducting analysis and data collection simultaneously; the use of comparative methods; developing tentative inductive categories that attempt to explain the data; and engaging in sampling to further refine

categories (Charmaz & Belgrave, 2012). However, there are key differences across variations which have influenced the choice of methodology in this research study.

GT’s first alteration was established within the ‘Basics of qualitative research: grounded theory procedures and techniques’ (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998), where the authors developed GT to a post-positivist method of verification (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007). Post-positivism is underpinned by an objectivist epistemology and critical realist ontological position (Levers, 2013). This approach applied the language of positivism, but recognises that whilst there are objective truths, these are near impossible to discover (Crotty, 2015). Under this paradigm, ‘knowledge is fallible because it is shaped by contextual influences’; yet, objectivist procedures are relied upon to bring the researcher closer to the truth (Levers. 2013, p. 3).

Strauss and Corbin, digressing from the key tenets of original GT, introduced further objectivist assumptions through technical procedures which are applied to the data, rather than letting the data direct the methodological decisions (Atkinson, Coffey, & Delamont, 2003; Charmaz, 2014). For instance, axial coding has been used as ‘a set of procedures whereby data are put back together in new ways after open coding, by making connections between categories. This is done by using a coding paradigm involving conditions, context, action/interactional strategies, and consequences’ (p. 96). The coding paradigm is used to organise and connect subcategories of data to a central idea, or phenomenon. Strauss and Corbin propose six predetermined subcategories that guide data collection and analysis: ‘conditions, phenomena, context, intervening conditions, actions/strategies, and consequences’ (Kendall, 1999, p. 747). However, such procedures have been criticised for reducing the inductivity of the GT, as data and analysis are forced into preconceived categories. (Charmaz, 2014; Glaser, 1992; Kendall, 1999). Therefore, Strauss and Corbin’s approach to GT, with

its post-positivistic stance and some of their procedures (e.g. axial coding), would not complement this study’s constructivist paradigm which emphasises subjective experiences, and would lessen the influence and positioning of the participants’ data within the GT.

Overall, both Glaser and Strauss’s (1967), and Strauss and Corbin’s (1990, 1998) version of GT have been criticised for an outdated epistemology (Charmaz, 2014), with their positivist and post-positivist assumptions of an external reality, and a passive, unbiased, objective observer or the application of methodological strategies which are not conducive to inductivity. Consequently, both approaches to GT, due to their theoretical underpinnings, and how these have been applied through strategies, are not appropriate to the constructivist paradigm of this research study.

These criticisms have resulted in the development of the methodological approach adopted in this research study, Charmaz’s (2006, 2014) CGT, which utilises GT strategies, but embraces Guba and Lincoln’s (1989) constructivist paradigm (Charmaz, 2006; Clarke, 2005). CGT will now be described.