NATAMST 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Grounded Theory, Inductive Reasoning, Deductive Reasoning

• School: Berkeley
• Department: Native American Studies
• Course: NATAMST 110
• Professor: Diane Pearson

Document Summary

Grounded theory is a research methodology that results in a theory that explains: A: predicts what social scientists might expect to find in similar data sets. 2: when practicing this method, researcher begins with a set of data, either quantitative or qualitative , then identifies patterns, trends, and relationships among the data. 3: based on these, researcher constructs a theory that is "grounded" in the data itself. This method differs from the traditional approach to science, which begins with a theory and then seeks to test it through the scientific methods. Grounded theory can be described as an inductive method, or a form of inductive reasoning . You do not start with a thesis; you want your research to guide you to a thesis/theory/etc. Sociologists glaser and strauss popularized this method in the 1960s, which they and many others c onsidered an antidote to the popularity of deductive theory which is considered to have been proven by research.