Over the past 40 years, grounded theory (GT) has slowly emerged as a prominent methodology for studying dynamic and unexplored phenomena. While this methodology provides researchers with systematic, yet flexible guidelines that promote and streamline theory development, it is this same open-ended and loosely-structured characteristic that convolutes the practice of GT research. Therefore, it can be particularly difficult for novice researchers to recognize and employ the multiple versions of this methodology in practice. To provide these individuals with a starting point for conducting grounded theory research, we organize this paper into three overarching sections: 1) introduction to the methodology; 2) a comparison between two types of grounded theory traditions; and 3) strategies for implementation. First, we establish an initial understanding of this methodology by providing a brief introduction of the GT methodology. Second, we compare and contrast two approaches of GT: traditional GT developed by Glaser and Strauss, and constructivist GT developed by Charmaz. Lastly, we provide strategies for methodological implementation as situated within a current GT study exploring professional identity formation in undergraduate civil engineering students. Strategies for data collection, organization, and analysis, model development, and theory abstraction are discussed.
Dr. Cassandra McCall is an Assistant Professor in the Engineering Education Department at Utah State University (USU). Her research focuses on the intersections of disability, identity formation, and culture and uses anti-ableist approaches to enhance universal access for students with disabilities in STEM, particularly in engineering. At USU, she serves as the Co-Director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Transition Services. In 2024, Dr. McCall received a National Science Foundation CAREER grant to identify systemic opportunities for increasing the participation of people with disabilities in engineering. Her award-winning publications have been recognized by leading engineering education research journals at both national and international levels. Dr. McCall has led several workshops promoting the inclusion of people with disabilities and other minoritized groups in STEM. She holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in civil engineering with a structural engineering emphasis.
Denise R. Simmons, Ph.D., PE, LEED-AP, is an assistant professor in the Myers-Lawson School of Construction and in the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department, and an affiliate faculty of the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She holds a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in civil engineering and a graduate certificate in engineering education – all from Clemson University. She is the 2016 recipient of Virginia Tech's College of Engineering Dean’s Award for Outstanding New Assistant Professor and the Black Graduate Student Organization’s Lisa Tabor Award for Community Service. Using deep insights from a fourteen-year industry career and her strengths as a systems thinker, she is now developing and disseminating empirically-grounded models and strategies for improved human competence, motivation, and learning as it relates to the civil engineering profession and the construction industry. She is a discipline-based education researcher who passionately pursues research to develop an agile, ethical, diverse construction workforce enabled to lead, design, and build sustainable, intelligent infrastructure. Her mission is to transform the construction workforce and sustain change. To this end, she undertakes research that enables her to influence postsecondary education and workplace learning pathways; instructional, diversity, recruitment, and retention strategies; and federal, state, local and institutional policies and practice and that result in professional competency in civil and construction engineering.
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6654-2337
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
[biography]
Lisa D. McNair is a Professor of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech, where she also serves as Deputy Executive Director of the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology (ICAT).
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