Thinking about research theory

So many theories... (1/28/26)

I'm trying to get my head around the theories, concepts, methods and philosophies of social science, and I'm getting jacked up on the language, specifically on the distinction between theory and method. In design-land, theory is going to be a guiding stance that shapes the types of decisions that get made during design. Outside of academia, I've never actually heard of any practicing designers say that they have a given theory of design, but I've seen a number of them in practice: design as authorship, design as craft, user-centered design, design as problem solving, and so-on. Methods in design practice are pretty clearly delineated. But I may be trying to make too much of a parallel between the way the words work in design, and the way the words work over here in social science scholar land.

As I gather it, we have various theoretical commitments (Anne Marie's language from today, very helpful) we make to our work. These include Symbolic Interactionism, Phenomonology, Narrative Inquiry, Action Research, and these three that keep popping up:

• Grounded Theory (plain, classic, whatever). This is the idea that a social truth exists and we can go find it through competent research. Competent would mean influencing the situation as little as possible, and the analysis of the data would be more than description alone; it would have to include comparison of items/content/data. That comparison happens continually, rather than when research is "done." Attributed to Glaser and Strauss.
• Constructivist Grounded Theory. Meaning is co-created with the participant, but during post-research analysis. The reseracher influences the research, just as we all influence everything, and it's something to be acknowledged and leaned-into. Data is coded and themed. Attributed to Charmaz.
• Discourse Analysis. The social world is shaped and understood through language: what is said, who gets to say it, under what circumstances, and so-on. Research focuses on exploring responses through a variety of lenses to uncover hidden things like power structures. Interpretation is driven by examining how language being used constructs social reality. Attributed to Gee, Foucault.

Then, we have research methods, that are independent of these commitments:

• Informational interviews
• Intensive Interviews
• Surveys
• Ethnography
• Autoethnography (blah)

And we can do a method with any of these commitments in mind. I conduct an immersive interview with a constructivist grounded theory commitment, where I expect to co-create meaning in my interview with the participant, and plan to code and structure the data categorically.

Or,

I conduct observational ethnography, with a discourse analysis commitment in mind, focusing my observations on what people say, when they say it, who they say it to, under what circumstances do they say it, and so-on.

So maybe it's a matrix, with "theoretical commitments" in columns, "methods" in rows, and the way they play out in the cells?

This largely makes sense to me, although it may be totally inaccurate.

A little more sense... (1/31/26)

I’m making a little more progress connecting the dots here, after a good conversation with Paul and Katie. I’m absolutely getting wrapped around the axle by the wording, not the concepts.

Grounded Theory is not a Theory, it is a Methodology. It is really Grounded Theory Methodology. Grounded Theory is a name for “A methodology for coming up with a theory that is grounded in data.” That’s obnoxious, but it is what it is.

A Grounded Theorist is someone who accepts and pursues the methodological commitments of the methodology: theory can be built inductively, theory should be built inductively, abstraction is acceptable but has to be “earned” through comparison of data and theoretical sampling.

Theoretical sampling does not mean sampling that is hypothetical (theoretical, as compared to actual). It means sampling in pursuit of the theory that is emerging. That’s also really obnoxious.

Grounded Theory has flavors, which are really perspectives that have emerged from debates between the creators of the methodology. One perspective is Objectivist Grounded Theory, that argues exactly what it says: there is an objective, existing set of social behaviors and we can go find them. Obnoxious point three: this is, as far as I can tell, entirely positivist, and so it grates against everything else we’ve been looking at. Constructivist Grounded Theory argues that a theory of social behaviors or patterns or understanding is constructed during research itself. Obnoxious point four is that Constructivist has nothing to do with Constructionist (learning, like Papert).

I still believe my little matrix/chart is right in intent: that there are a number of methods for research, a number for synthesis, etc (methods read as techniques), and a number of methodologies for thinking about and developing theories of the social world around us (methodologies read as perspectives on how things happen), and they can intersect.

I will say that for a field that is focused so much on language, the imprecise use of method, methodology, theory, and so-on is super frustrating.