Grounded Theory and Disability Studies: An Investigation Into Leg ...

Figure 1. The cycle of data analysis.

A further issue was also raised by the American social scientist Goldthorpe (2000), British educationalists Thomas and James (2006), and the Swiss information scientists Calin and Weiss (2011), who criticised the nature of the original definitions of key concepts in The Discovery of Grounded Theory, and in particular the concepts of ‘induction’, ‘objectivity’, and ‘entering the field without any preconceptions’. It was believed that in the original—now thought of as the orthodox description of grounded theory—the desire to enter the field without any form of reading or statement of research, research questions, or preconceptions was unrealistic and against the understanding of good practice in contemporary research design. It was also argued that the terms ‘theory’, ‘grounded’, and even ‘discovery’ in the title of Glaser and Strauss’s initial work were misused and absolutist. These terms could never be justified in the context of a relatively loose study in which concepts were induced. As Calin and Weiss stated on this issue,