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

Chapter 2

Open Coding

The Initial Research Design and Fieldwork, 1993 to 1995

Introduction

The fieldwork for this initial research project began as a simple evaluation of an art course for blind students in what was then called the Richard Attenborough Centre for Disability and the Arts, Leicester University. It has since been renamed the Richard Attenborough Centre for the Arts, even though money was raised by the university on the understanding that it would be an arts centre primarily for disabled people (Parry-Williams, 1994). I began my work without knowing that it would evolve into a grounded theory over two decades of investigation or that I would need to develop more testable elements. As I stated in the introduction, at the time it was not initially intended to have elements of grounded theory in its research design; it was to be only an evaluation of a course that was run through the centre in the summer of 1994 and then courses designed for blind adults in the continuing studies department at Bristol University, with a research thesis as its outcome. This process involved the following four initial choices.