[Air-l] qualitative analysis of discussion board postings

[Jeremy Hunsinger]

this "grounded theory has been busted for the nonsense that it is"  
sounds suspiciously like what i termed  methodological ideology.  If  
it isn't ideological, perhaps it is just a form of methodological  
orthodoxy.  I'm not going to say that grounded theory is good or  
great personally, as i've only read a few texts and never used it, it  
does seem to be one of the major theories that frames qualitative  
analysis.  I think the key to grounded theory is to realize that is  
designed to discover theories, which is a problematic concept in some  
ways.   if you aren't in the process of 'theory development' then it  
might not be the model for you.   in any case, there is a ton of  
dissertations, and related 'quality' scholarship in using grounded  
theory that to the casual observer indicates that it has some  
usefulness.  i'd propose suspending judgement until sufficient  
citations are provided.

There are many ways of thinking and analyzing the world that would be  
antagonistic toward grounded theory.   i can imagine if one is a  
practice-turn ethnographer that the facility for theory discovery  
seems less necessary in the face of the brute facts of the  
experiences that you describe.  But, I don't know.

i think the best way to think of methods is methodological pluralism,  
which in my mind argues that there are many ways to access knowledge  
and that the knowledge generated is always the same sort about the  
same thing, but in the end the application of one suite of  
methodoligical tools to its appropriate data is as valuable as  
another suite and that any given analysis is likely to be limited by  
the methods used.



On Aug 10, 2006, at 4:11 AM, Denise N. Rall wrote:

> Dear Ulla et al.-
>
> Thanks for the framing theory. I was going to
> recommend *anything but* grounded theory - as Georgina
> Born said recently in Masterclass (sorry but she's
> cool) - "grounded theory has been busted for the
> nonsense it is" but unfortunately I forget who said
> this.  She's an ethnographer so there might be some
> bias built in there.
>
> Cheers, Denise
>
>

Jeremy Hunsinger
School of Library and Information Science
Pratt Institute
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