Grounded Theory (again)

Interesting text by Cutcliffe, J.R. "Methodological issues in grounded theory":

- He proposes a combination of the methods proposed - separately - by Glaser and Strauss. He says that any attempt of a purist approach to the method can only constrain the gathering of data.

- However, he advocates the strict definition and execution of the methodology once it is chosen. Not being able to describe the method used for the gathering/analysis of data is, according to him, one of the greatest weaknesses of grounded theorists.

- He is in favour of pre-field revision of literature and use of researcher's background knowledge -- for what Glaser's must be turning in his thumb. Fair point: if the researcher doesn't know what has been written about the matter of investigation, how can he possibly know what to look at. Some minimal direction must be taken.

- Understandably so, Cutcliffe doesn't seem to think that researchers should choose their informants before the observations take place. But he does think that an activity that can -- and should -- take place before the observation period starts is the definition of criteria to choose the informants. What should informants have or be to be good informants for this specific research? Generally, informants are people who have content knowledge about the phenomenon being studied and who are willing to talk. However, each field and each research questions turns itself to one -- or more -- people in the field, and these are the informants for this specific study. POINT TO THINK ABOUT.

- Insists in the importance of doing theoretical coding as well as substantial coding. According to him, substantial coding are called this because they codify the substance of the data and often use the very words used by the actors themselves. I think I am on the right way for this one. What about theoretical coding? Is it categorizing?

This article was published on the Journal of Advanced Nursing, in 2000. Funny eh?

design interactions, not applications

Among my readings of the weekend, the paper by Saul Greenberg, who revisits the concept of context and analyzes why designers find it so difficult to build context awareness applications.

He gives a brief explanation of three theories of context: Situated Actions, (our most beloved) Activity Theory and another approach I have never heard of before, the "locales framework".

According to the author "the Locales framework was developed as a principled approach to help people understand the nature of social activity and work, and how a locale (or place) can support these activities ... In many ways, the Locales framework is about the social construction and use of context, and it too recognizes its dynamic properties. Locales (the site and means) are the external contributors to context; although locales can be fixed, most are fluid.

His overall argument, though, is more interesting: if in many cases some contextual situations are fairly stable, discernible and predictable, there are many others that are not.

That implies that 1) it may be impossible to determine an appropriate set of canonical states of context 2) determining what information is necessary to infer a contextual state may be difficult and 3) determining an appropriate action from a given context may be difficult, because the kind of responses that people expect from a context-aware application are very situation-dependable.

So here I must agree with Suchman when she says that human beings don't plan anything: they just react. We do, we are opportunistic creatures who optimize the path to accomplish a task that will require the least effort.

From his brief description of the "context theories", general perceptions arise:

- interactions evolve over time, therefore the historical character of activity is relevant for understanding the interaction

- people have particular views of the same things (or places, or practices) so the individual's history counts when analyzing a context

- artefacts are the media by which people achieve goals, they are not (or shouldn't be) the goal itself


We should aim to design interactions, not applications.

Coding

Difficult day after a long break (bank holiday). I managed to do some reading during the weekend, but didn't succeed much in concentrating.

Today I read Strauss & Corbin, Chapter 8 on "Open Coding", all about phenomena, concepts, categories, subcategories, properties and dimensions. We give names to phenomena, transforming them into concepts so we can make sense of them, compare them, group them and analyze them, and in the end, make theory out of them. When we put names on things we fix our attention on them and ask questions about them. This is why coding is important.

I was not entirely convinced by Strauss and Corbin's arguments and even less clear about how to do it. So I gave it a go and did it to the data (interview) I collected at The Newspaper last week. I am not quite sure about how accurate my understanding is, but as I told Simon: the advantage of researching versus doing journalism is that with research you don't find out that you had the long lead by reading all the other newspapers the morning after. In research you are all the other newspapers and even better: you can come back and re-write the lead if you find out it is wrong.

This is my attempt to build a schedule for the days at The Newspaper

My objective with this is to see in a more graphical way what I have been thinking about lately. I need to make sure I observe the newsroom in different times and, if possible, at all times, in order to achieve a comprehensive combination of staff + time of the day + day of the week.

This way, if an event happens at a certain time in a certain day of the week I will be able to check not only if it happens also in other times of that same day, but also if it happens in other days of the week.

I am aware of the fact that it will be very difficult to follow this schedule by the line, since interviews and visits will be modulated by the process itself. But I found it important to have a plan that can guide me through it.

Maybe I am just a control freak. Maybe one cannot have such a plan when doing ethnography. Or maybe I just have to be good on it, which means being very adaptable to the circumstances and change the route halfway through the journey. I think I can do it.