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As more sophisticated questions are raised about the learning students achieve on college campuses, educators must design more sophisticated research studies to answer them. This article provides an introduction to grounded theory, a powerful qualitative research method that can increase educators' understanding of the complex student experience.
Understanding the undergraduate student experience is of utmost importance to many educators (Upcraft & Schuh, 1996). However, as more sophisticated questions are raised about student learning, student development, and student identity on college campuses, more sophisticated research studies must be designed to answer these questions. Student affairs practitioners in their component subspecialties are uniquely positioned to make significant contributions to this endeavor because of their connections to college students.
Although the contributions of quantitative studies to the research literature have been significant, more researchers are employing qualitative methods to get a better understanding of the complex interactions between the student and the college environment (Attinasi, 1992; Baird, 1996). Quantitative and qualitative modes of inquiry have different purposes (generalizability and prediction vs. contextualization and interpretation), approach (experimental and deductive vs. inductive and naturalistic) and rely on different researcher roles (detachment and impartiality vs. personal involvement and empathic understanding) (Garland & Grace, 1993). Because many aspects of the college experience do not divide neatly into discrete variables, qualitative methods of inquiry are the best suited for understanding the complex phenomena that come together to form the college experience (Gall, Borg, & Gall, 1996; Garland & Grace; Marshall & Rossman, 1995; Patton, 1990). Qualitative methodology is useful in exploring and describing the experiences of college students, especially when little is known about the phenomenon under study. A qualitative approach yields results that cannot be gathered using quantitative methods. Although qualitative research means different things to different people, it generally refers to research that leads to understanding people's lives, stories, behaviors, or is about organizational functioning, social movements, or interactional relationships (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).
The grounded theory approach uses a "systematic set of procedures to develop an inductively derived grounded theory about a phenomenon" (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, p. 24). The procedures are based on the "systematic generating of theory from data, that is systematically obtained from social research, and offers a rigorous, orderly guide to theory development that at...