eSaminars of Nvivo for Research

Methods of Discovery: A Guide to Research Writing

by Pavel Zemliansky, Ph.D

• Chapter 1: Research Writing and Argument
• Chapter 2: Research Writing as a Process
• Chapter 3: Research and Critical Reading
• Chapter 4: Finding and Evaluating Research Sources
• Chapter 5: Acknowledging Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism
• Chapter 6: Research Writing in The Academic Disciplines
• Chapter 7: Research Writing and the Internet
• Chapter 8: Creating Autobiographies, Family, and Community Histories Through Research
• Chapter 9: Research and Writing Through Collaboration
• Download pdf
• Chapter 10: Ethnographic Research
• Chapter 11: I-Search Writing
• Chapter 12: Mixing Genres and Voices in Multigenre Writing
• Works Cited 

Ref: http://methodsofdiscovery.net/?q=node/4

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approaches

The CDA approaches, it can find all the theoretical levels of sociological and socio-psychological theory (the concept of different theoretical levels is in the tradition of Merton, 1967: 39–72):

- Epistemology, i.e. theories which provide models of the conditions, contingencies and limit of human perception in general and scientific perception in particular.

- General social theories, often called ‘grand theories’, try to conceptualize the relations between social structure and social action and thus link micro- and macro-sociological phenomena.Within this level, one can distinguish between the more structuralist and the more individualist approaches. To put it very simply, the former provide top-down explanations (structure>action), whereas the latter prefer bottom-up explanations (action>structure). Many modern theories try to reconcile these positions and imply some kind of circularity between social action and social structure.

- Middle-range theories focus either upon specific social phenomena (e.g. conflict, cognition, social networks) or on specific subsystems of society (e.g. economy, politics, religion).

- Micro-sociological theories try to explain social interaction, for example the resolution of the double contingency problem (Parsons and Shils, 1951: 3–29) or the reconstruction of everyday procedures which members of a society use to create their own social order, which is the objective of ethno-methodology.

- Socio-psychogical theories concentrate upon the social conditions of emotion and cognition and, compared to micro-sociology, prefer causal explanations to a hermeneutic understanding of meaning.

- Discourse theories aim at the conceptualization of discourse as a social phenomenon and try to explain its genesis and its structure.

- Linguistic theories, e.g. theories of argumentation, of grammar, of rhetoric, try to describe and explain the pattern specific to language systems and verbal communication.

Ref: Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, Critical Discourse Analysis: History, Agenda,Theory, and Methodology, page 24-25

Difference Between Overt and Covert Behavior

The English language is full of words that sound similar but have very different meanings. For example, overt and covert are easy to confuse when read or heard, but they have opposite meanings. The two terms are frequently used by psychologist to describe two different types of behavior. Simply put, overt behavior is something other people can see, while covert behavior is hidden. It is easy to remember to the difference between the two by thinking of the words open and close. Both overt and open begin with the letter o, while covert and close both start with the letter c.
In psychological terms, overt behavior includes anything that is directly observable, like walking, talking and biking. Covert behavior is not observable and includes thinking and imagining. Some covert behaviors are detectable through special means, while others are truly private and completely undetectable. Observable covert behaviors include things like a heart beating. Normally an unobservable behavior, a beating heart is monitorable. By using special equipment, a heart beat can be heard by many people simultaneously. Other equipment can detect symptoms of nervousness. No equipment that currently exists can monitor things like thought and imagination. These convert behaviors remain truly private. Overt and covert antisocial behaviors are frequently discussed because people who exhibit antisocial behaviors are at a disadvantage in society. Children and adolescents who display antisocial behaviors are much more likely to experience depression as adults. This starts a snowball effect because antisocial behaviors are largely influenced by family and parenting factors. Children of parents with deviant or antisocial behaviors are much more likely to develop these behaviors, themselves. Overt antisocial behaviors include aggression towards peers, resentment, negativity and irritability. Covert antisocial behaviors include anxiety and less participation in social activities, such as sports and clubs. Understanding the difference between overt and covert behaviors is important to psychologists, but other interested people may enjoy knowing about these behaviors, too. user www.sfsu.edu or www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

http://www.reference.com/motif/society/difference-between-overt-and-covert-behavior

Narathiwat tourism development strategies 2012 – 2016

ยุทธศาสตร์การพัฒนาการท่องเที่ยวจังหวัดนราธิวาส พ.ศ.๒๕๕๕ – ๒๕๕๙

วิสัยทัศน์ พันธกิจ วัตถุประสงค์ และเป้าหมายการพัฒนาการท่องเที่ยวจังหวัดนราธิวาส

วิสัยทัศน์

“ดินแดนท่องเที่ยวเชิงอนุรักษ์และบริการในระดับสากลเพื่อรองรับการท่องเที่ยวและการค้าชายแดน”

Vision
"Land of international ecotourism and service which supports tourism and border trade."

พันธกิจ

๑. ส่งเสริม สนับสนุนพัฒนาแหล่งท่องเที่ยวเชิงอนุรักษ์ และวัฒนธรรมของจังหวัด

๒. พัฒนายกระดับมาตรฐานสินค้าและบริการด้านการท่องเที่ยว

๓. เพิ่มจำนวนนักท่องเที่ยวและรายได้

๔. ส่งเสริม ด้านการประชาสัมพันธ์และการตลาดเพื่อสนับสนุนการท่องเที่ยว

Mission

1. Promoting and developing eco-tourism and local culture.
2. Developing product and service standards.
3. Increasing number of tourists and revenue.
4. Promoting public relations and marketing to support tourism.

ประเด็นยุทธศาสตร์ เพื่อการพัฒนาการท่องเที่ยวจังหวัดนราธิวาส

การพัฒนาการท่องเที่ยวของจังหวัดนราธิวาส เพื่อให้บรรลุเป้าประสงค์และวิสัยทัศน์ที่กล่าวมาข้างต้น จำเป็นต้องมีการดำเนินการพร้อมกันไปในหลายด้าน โดยมาตรการแต่ละด้านจะต้องหนุนเสริมซึ่งกันและกันอย่างเป็นระบบ และสามารถส่งผลลัพธ์ที่เป็นรูปธรรมได้อย่างแท้จริงในช่วงเวลาของแผนฯ ดังนั้น จึงจำเป็นต้องมีการดำเนินการเชิงกลยุทธ์ที่เน้นเฉพาะกิจกรรมสำคัญ ๆ

Strategic issues for tourism development in Narathiwat

Tourism development in Narathiwat to achieve its goals and vision mentioned above  need to be performed simultaneously on many fronts. Each side measures must reinforce each other in a systematic way. So that it can truly deliver tangible results in the period of the Plan, there needs to be action-oriented strategies that focus only on important events.

เป้าประสงค์

๑. มีแหล่งท่องเที่ยวทางธรรมชาติและวัฒนธรรมที่ได้มาตรฐาน

๒. จำนวนผู้มาเยือนเพิ่มขึ้น

๓. รายได้จากการท่องเที่ยวเพิ่มขึ้น

Goal
1. Increase natural attractions and cultural standards.
2. Increase the numbers tourist.
3. Increase revenue from tourism.

Etic and Emic Perspectives

An emic view is the view from within, the etic view is the view from outside.

Emic is what a person IN the culture studied would have, and an anthropologist would take an outsider's view.

For example all cultures have a taboo on incest. The emic view would be the cultural logic that makes the taboo logical for that culture such as a positive one - when you marry outside your family you extend your family's influence.

The etic view might point to a Darwinian explanation concerning the problems you can get with offspring if you marry someone with similar genes.
Obviously, before Darwin this was unknown and is not a culturally sensitive answer.

The problem with this etic view is that no culture would ever know that unless they had practiced incest- the problem with it can never be known.

This particular example is interesting, because the etic (which is our emic) is actually not correct. In most cases where the genes are healthy no problems ever occur with close relationships and animal breeders do it all the time; it happens in nature all the time without problem.
Looking at emic explanations from other cultures can reveal the cultural fallacies in our own.

 Ref: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111024014600AAVz8LU

Twelve Major Characteristics of Qualitative Research

Design Strategies

1. Naturalistic inquiry

Studying real-world situations as they unfold naturally; non- manipulative and non-controlling; openness to whatever emerges (lack of predetermined constraints on findings).

2. Emergent design flexibility

Openness to adapting inquiry as understanding deepens and/or situations to change; the researcher avoids getting locked into rigid designs that eliminate responsiveness and pursues new paths of discovery as they emerge.

3. Purposeful sampling

Cases for study (e.g., people, organizations, communities, cultures, events, critical incidences) are selected because they are “information rich” and illuminative, that is, they offer useful manifestations of the phenomenon of interest; sampling, then, is aimed at insight about the phenomenon, not empirical generalization from a sample to a population.

Data-Collection and Fieldwork Strategies

4. Qualitative data

Observations that yield detailed, thick description; inquiry in depth; interviews that capture direct quotations about people’s personal perspectives and experiences; case studies; careful document review.

5. Personal experience and engagement

The researcher has direct contact with and gets close to the people, situation, and phenomenon under study; the researcher’s personal experiences and insights are an important part of the inquiry and critical to understanding the phenomenon.

6. Empathic neutrality and mindfulness

An empathic stance in interviewing seeks vicarious understanding without judgment (neutrality) by showing openness, sensitivity, respect, awareness, and responsiveness; in observation it means being fully present (mindfulness).

7. Dynamic systems

Attention to process; assumes change as ongoing whether focus is on an individual, an organization, a community, or an entire culture; therefore, mindful of and attentive to system and situation dynamics.

Analysis Strategies

8.  Unique case orientation

Assumes that each case is special and unique; the first level of analysis is being true to, respecting, and capturing the details of the individual cases being studied; cross-case analysis follows from and depends on the quality of individual case studies.

9. Inductive analysis and creative synthesis

Immersion in the details and specifics of the data to discover important patterns, themes, and interrelationships; begins by exploring, then confirming, guided by analytical principles rather than rules, ends with a creative synthesis.

10.  Holistic perspective

The whole phenomenon under study is understood as a complex system that is more than the sum of its parts; focus on complex inter-dependencies and system dynamics that cannot meaningfully be reduced to a few discrete variables and linear, cause effect relationships.

11. Context sensitivity

Places findings in a social, historical, and temporal context; careful about, even dubious of, the possibility or meaningfulness of generalizations across time and space; emphasizes instead careful comparative case analyses and extrapolating patterns for possible transferability and adaptation in new settings.

12.  Voice, perspective, and reflexivity

The qualitative analyst owns and is reflective about her or his own voice and perspective; a credible voice conveys authenticity and trustworthiness; complete objectivity being impossible and pure subjectivity undermining credibility, the researcher’s focus becomes balance understanding and depicting the world authentically in all its complexity while being self-analytical, politically aware, and reflexive in consciousness.

Source: From M. Q. Patton, Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods, Third Edition, pp. 40–41, copyright 2002 by Sage Publications, Inc.

Ref: http://www.southalabama.edu/coe/bset/johnson/oh_master/Ch12/Tab12-01.pdf

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research relies primarily on the collection of qualitative data (i.e., nonnumeric data such as words and pictures).

• I suggest that, to put things in perspective, you start by reviewing the table showing the common differences between qualitative, quantitative, and mixed research. That is, take a quick look at Table 2.1.

Next, to further understand what qualitative research is all about, please carefully examine Patton’s excellent summary of the twelvemajor characteristics of qualitative research, which is shown in Table 14.1 in your book.

In addition to Patton’s 12 major characteristics, some qualitative researchers advocate the theories/philosophies of postmodernism and poststructuralism. These ideas are explained (including their historical origins) in Exhibit 14.1.

Postmodernism is an intellectual movement that reacted to and rejected what they called modernism. They also rejected what is commonly called positivism. Here are the definitions of modernism and positivism (the ideas they rejected) followed by the definition of postmodernism (the idea they like).

·         Modernism is the term used by postmodernists to refer to an earlier and outdated period in the history of science that viewed the world as a static (i.e., unchanging) machine where everyone follows the same laws of behavior.

·         Positivism is the term used by qualitative research to refer to what might better be labeled “scientism,” which is the belief that all true knowledge must be based on science.

·         Postmodernism is a historical intellectual movement that constructs its self-image as in opposition to modernism; postmodernism emphasizes the primacy of individuality, difference, fragmentation, flux, constant change, lack of foundations for thought, and interpretation.

Another intellectual and historical movement that characterizes some qualitative researchers is called poststructuralism. Rather than rejecting the prior movement from which it takes its name (structuralism), poststructuralists reject parts of structuralism and build on other parts. Here is the definition of structuralism and the movement called structuralism that is popular with a significant number of qualitative researchers:

·         Structuralism is a broad or grand theory that emphasizes the importance of cultural-structural-institutional and functional relations as providing a large part of the social world in which humans live, and this structure is key in determining meaning and influencing human behavior.

·         Poststructuralism refers to a historical intellectual movement that rejects universal truth and emphasizes differences, deconstruction, interpretation, and the power of ideas over peoples’ behavior.

In short, a significant number of qualitative researchers identify with the movements of postmodernism and poststructuralism, and that’s why it is important to know what those ideas are all about.

In the rest of this chapter, we discuss the four major types or methods of qualitative research:

• Phenomenology.

• Ethnography.

• Grounded theory.

• Case study.

(In the next chapter (Chapter 15) we discuss historical research which can be viewed as a fifth type of qualitative research because of its interpretative nature.)

To get things started, please examine the key characteristics (i.e., purpose, origin, data-collection methods, data analysis, and report focus) of these four types or methods of qualitative research as shown in Table 14.2 (see your textbook).

Phenomenology

The first major approach to qualitative research is phenomenology (i.e., the descriptive study of how individuals experience a phenomenon).

• Here is the foundational question in phenomenology: What is the meaning, structure, and essence of the lived experience of this phenomenon by an individual or by many individuals?

• The researcher tries to gain access to individuals' life-worlds, which is their world of experience; it is where consciousness exists.

• Conducting in-depth interviews is a common method for gaining access to individuals' life- worlds.

• The researcher, next, searches for the invariant structures of individuals' experiences (also called the essences of their experience).

• Phenomenological researchers often search for commonalities across individuals (rather than only focusing on what is unique to a single individual). For example, what are the essences of peoples' experience of the death of a loved one? Here is another example: What are the essences of peoples' experiences of an uncaring nurse?

• After analyzing your phenomenological research data, you should write a report that provides rich description and a "vicarious experience" of being there for the reader of the report. Shown next are two good examples. See if you get the feeling the patients had when they described caring and noncaring nurses.

• Here is a description of a caring nurse (from Exhibit 14.3) based on a phenomenological research study: “In a caring interaction, the nurse’s existential presence is perceived by the client as more than just a physical presence. There is the aspect of the nurse giving of oneself to the client. This giving of oneself may be in response to the client’s request, but it is more often a voluntary effort and is unsolicited by the client. The nurse’s willingness to give of oneself is primarily perceived by the client as an attitude and behavior of sitting down and really listening and responding to the unique concerns of the individual as a person of value. The relaxation, comfort, and security that the client expresses both physically and mentally are an immediate and direct result of the client’s stated and unstated needs being heard and responded to by the nurse” (From Creswell, 1998, p.289).

• From the same study of nurses, a description also was provided of a noncaring nurse (our Exhibit 14.4). Here it is: “The nurse’s presence with the client is perceived by the client as a minimal presence of the nurse being physically present only. The nurse is viewed as being there only because it is a job and not to assist the client or answer his or her needs. Any response by the nurse is done with a minimal amount of energy expenditure and bound by the rules. The client perceives the nurse who does not respond to this request for assistance as being noncaring. Therefore, an interaction that never happened is labeled as a noncaring interaction. The nurse is too busy and hurried to spend time with the client and therefore does not sit down and really listen to the client’s individual concerns. The client is further devalued as a unique person because he or she is scolded, treated as a child, or treated as a nonhuman being or an object. Because of the devaluing and lack of concern, the client’s needs are not met and the client has negative feelings, that is, frustrated, scared, depressed, angry, afraid, and upset” (From Creswell, 1998, p.289).

Ethnography

The second major approach to qualitative research is ethnography (i.e., the discovery and description of the culture of a group of people).

• Here is the foundational question in ethnography: What are the cultural characteristics of this group of people or of this cultural scene?

• Because ethnography originates in the discipline of Anthropology, the concept of culture is of central importance.

• Culture is the system of shared beliefs, values, practices, language, norms,   rituals, and material things that group members use to understand their world.

• One can study micro cultures (e.g., such as the culture in a classroom) as well as macro cultures (e.g., such as the United States of America culture).

There are two additional or specialized types of ethnography.

1.      Ethnology (the comparative study of cultural groups).

2.      Ethnohistory (the study of the cultural past of a group of people). An ethnohistory is often done in the early stages of a standard ethnography in order to get a sense of the group's cultural history.

Here are some more concepts that are commonly used by ethnographers:

·         Ethnocentrism (i.e., judging others based on your cultural standards). You must avoid this problem if you are to be a successful ethnographer!

·         Emic perspective (i.e., the insider's perspective) and emic terms (i.e., specialized words used by people in a group).

·         Etic perspective (i.e., the external, social scientific view) and etic terms (i.e., outsider's words or specialized words used by social scientists).

·         Going native (i.e., identifying so completely with the group being studied that you are unable to be objective).

·         Holism (i.e., the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts; it involves describing the group as a whole unit, in addition to its parts and their interrelationships).

The final ethnography (i.e., the report) should provide a rich and holistic description of the culture of the group under study.
 

Case Study Research

The third major approach to qualitative research is case study research (i.e., the detailed account and analysis of one or more cases).

• Here is the foundational question in case study research: What are the characteristics of this single case or of these comparison cases?

• A case is a bounded system (e.g., a person, a group, an activity, a process).
   

Because the roots of case study are interdisciplinary, many different concepts and theories can be used to describe and explain the case.
 

Robert Stake classifies case study research into three types:

1. Intrinsic case study (where the interest is only in understanding the particulars of the case).

2. Instrumental case study (where the interest is in understanding something more general than the case).

3. Collective case study (where interest is in studying and comparing multiple cases in a single research study).
    

Multiple methods of data collection are often used in case study research (e.g., interviews, observation, documents, questionnaires).
 

The case study final report should provide a rich (i.e., vivid and detailed) and holistic (i.e., describes the whole and its parts) description of the case and its context.

Grounded Theory

The fourth major approach to qualitative research is grounded theory (i.e., the development of inductive, "bottom-up," theory that is "grounded" directly in the empirical data).

• Here is the foundational question in grounded theory: What theory or explanation emerges from an analysis of the data collected about this phenomenon?

• It is usually used to generate theory (remember from earlier chapters that theories tell you "How" and "Why" something operates as it does; theories provide explanations).

• Grounded theory can also be used to test or elaborate upon previously grounded theories, as long as the approach continues to be one of constantly grounding any changes in the new data.
   

Four important characteristics of a grounded theory are

• Fit (i.e., Does the theory correspond to real-world data?),

• Understanding (i.e., Is the theory clear and understandable?),

• Generality (i.e., Is the theory abstract enough to move beyond the specifics in the original research study?),

• Control (i.e., Can the theory be applied to produce real-world results?).

Data collection and analysis continue throughout the study.

When collecting and analyzing the researcher needs theoretical sensitivity (i.e., being sensitive about what data are important in developing the grounded theory).

Data analysis often follows three steps:

1. Open coding (i.e., reading transcripts line-by- line and identifying and coding the concepts found in the data).

2. Axial coding (i.e., organizing the concepts and making them more abstract).

3. Selective coding (i.e., focusing on the main ideas, developing the story, and finalizing the grounded theory).
    

The grounded theory process is "complete" when theoretical saturation occurs (i.e., when no new concepts are emerging from the data and the theory is well validated).
 

The final report should include a detailed and clear description of the grounded theory.

Final note: The chapter includes many examples of each of the four types of qualitative research to help in your understanding (i.e., phenomenology, ethnography, case study, and grounded theory). In addition, you should find and read new examples in the published literature to help further your understanding of these four important approaches to qualitative research.

Ref: Chapter 14 Qualitative Research

Introduction to Grounded Theory

By Steve Borgatti

Discussion drawn from:

• Glaser and Strauss. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory.
• Strauss and Corbin. 1990. Basics of Qualitative Research.

Goals and Perspective

The phrase "grounded theory" refers to theory that is developed inductively from a corpus of data. If done well, this means that the resulting theory at least fits one dataset perfectly. This contrasts with theory derived deductively from grand theory, without the help of data, and which could therefore turn out to fit no data at all.
Grounded theory takes a case rather than variable perspective, although the distinction is nearly impossible to draw. This means in part that the researcher takes different cases to be wholes, in which the variables interact as a unit to produce certain outcomes. A case-oriented perspective tends to assume that variables interact in complex ways, and is suspicious of simple additive models, such as ANOVA with main effects only.
Part and parcel of the case-orientation is a comparative orientation. Cases similar on many variables but with different outcomes are compared to see where the key causal differences may lie. This is based on John Stuart Mills' (1843, A system of logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive) method of differences -- essentially the use of (natural) experimental design. Similarly, cases that have the same outcome are examined to see which conditions they all have in common, thereby revealing necessary causes.
The grounded theory approach, particularly the way Strauss develops it, consists of a set of steps whose careful execution is thought to "guarantee" a good theory as the outcome. Strauss would say that the quality of a theory can be evaluated by the process by which a theory is constructed. (This contrasts with the scientific perspective that how you generate a theory, whether through dreams, analogies or dumb luck, is irrelevant: the quality of a theory is determined by its ability to explain new data.)
Although not part of the grounded theory rhetoric, it is apparent that grounded theorists are concerned with or largely influenced by emic understandings of the world: they use categories drawn from respondents themselves and tend to focus on making implicit belief systems explicit.

Methods

The basic idea of the grounded theory approach is to read (and re-read) a textual database (such as a corpus of field notes) and "discover" or label variables (called categories, concepts and properties) and their interrelationships. The ability to perceive variables and relationships is termed "theoretical sensitivity" and is affected by a number of things including one's reading of the literature and one's use of techniques designed to enhance sensitivity.
Of course, the data do not have to be literally textual -- they could be observations of behavior, such as interactions and events in a restaurant. Often they are in the form of field notes, which are like diary entries. An example is here.

Open Coding

Open coding is the part of the analysis concerned with identifying, naming, categorizing and describing phenomena found in the text. Essentially, each line, sentence, paragraph etc. is read in search of the answer to the repeated question "what is this about? What is being referenced here?"
These labels refer to things like hospitals, information gathering, friendship, social loss, etc. They are the nouns and verbs of a conceptual world. Part of the analytic process is to identify the more general categories that these things are instances of, such as institutions, work activities, social relations, social outcomes, etc.
We also seek out the adjectives and adverbs --- the properties of these categories. For example, about a friendship we might ask about its duration, and its closeness, and its importance to each party. Whether these properties or dimensions come from the data itself, from respondents, or from the mind of the researcher depends on the goals of the research.
It is important to have fairly abstract categories in addition to very concrete ones, as the abstract ones help to generate general theory.
Consider what is implied in the following passage of text (Strauss and Corbin pg. 78):

Text Fragment 1

Pain relief is a major problem when you have arthritis. Sometimes, the pain is worse than other times, but when it gets really bad, whew! It hurts so bad, you don't want to get out of bed. You don't feel like doing anything. Any relief you get from drugs that you take is only temporary or partial.

One thing that is being discussed here is PAIN. Implied in the text is that the speaker views pain as having certain properties, one of which is INTENSITY: it varies from a little to a lot. (When is it a lot and when is it little?) When it hurts a lot, there are consequences: don't want to get out of bed, don't feel like doing things (what are other things you don't do when in pain?). In order to solve this problem, you need PAIN RELIEF. One AGENT OF PAIN RELIEF is drugs (what are other members of this category?). Pain relief has a certain DURATION (could be temporary), and EFFECTIVENESS (could be partial).
One can see that this sort of analysis has a very emic cast to it, even though I think that most grounded theorists believe they are theorizing about how the world *is* rather than how respondents see it. 
The process of naming or labeling things, categories, and properties is known as coding. Coding can be done very formally and systematically or quite informally. In grounded theory, it is normally done quite informally. For example, if after coding much text, some new categories are invented, grounded theorists do not normally go back to the earlier text to code for that category. However, maintaining an inventory of codes with their descriptions (i.e., creating a codebook) is useful, along with pointers to text that contain them. In addition, as codes are developed, it is useful to write memos known as code notes that discuss the codes. These memos become fodder for later development into reports.
An example of a code note is found here.

Axial Coding

Axial coding is the process of relating codes (categories and properties) to each other, via a combination of inductive and deductive thinking. To simplify this process, rather than look for any and all kind of relations, grounded theorists emphasize causal relationships, and fit things into a basic frame of generic relationships. The frame consists of the following elements:

Element	Description
Phenomenon	This is what in schema theory might be called the name of the schema or frame. It is the concept that holds the bits together. In grounded theory it is sometimes the outcome of interest, or it can be the subject.
Causal conditions	These are the events or variables that lead to the occurrence or development of the phenomenon. It is a set of causes and their properties.
Context	Hard to distinguish from the causal conditions. It is the specific locations (values) of background variables. A set of conditions influencing the action/strategy. Researchers often make a quaint distinction between active variables (causes) and background variables (context). It has more to do with what the researcher finds interesting (causes) and less interesting (context) than with distinctions out in nature.
Intervening conditions	Similar to context. If we like, we can identify context with moderating variables and intervening conditions with mediating variables. But it is not clear that grounded theorists cleanly distinguish between these two.
Action strategies	The purposeful, goal-oriented activities that agents perform in response to the phenomenon and intervening conditions.
Consequences	These are the consequences of the action strategies, intended and unintended.

In the text segment above, it seems obvious that the phenomenon of interest is pain, the causal conditions are arthritis, the action strategy is taking drugs, and the consequence is pain relief. Note that grounded theorists don't show much interest in the consequences of the phenomenon itself.
It should be noted again that a fallacy of some grounded theory work is that they take the respondent's understanding of what causes what as truth. That is, they see the informant as an insider expert, and the model they create is really the informant's folk model. 

Selective Coding

Selective coding is the process of choosing one category to be the core category, and relating all other categories to that category. The essential idea is to develop a single storyline around which all everything else is draped. There is a belief that such a core concept always exists.
I believe grounded theory draws from literary analysis, and one can see it here. The advice for building theory parallels advice for writing a story. Selective coding is about finding the driver that impels the story forward.

Memos

Memos are short documents that one writes to oneself as one proceeds through the analysis of a corpus of data. We have already been introduced to two kinds of memos, the field note and the code note (see above). Equally important is the theoretical note. A theoretical note is anything from a post-it that notes how something in the text or codes relates to the literature, to a 5-page paper developing the theoretical implications of something. The final theory and report is typically the integration of several theoretical memos. Writing theoretical memos allows you to think theoretically without the pressure of working on "the" paper.
An example of a theoretical memo is here.

Process

Strauss and Corbin consider that paying attention to processes is vital. It is important to note that their usage of "process" is not quite the same as Lave and March, who use process as a synonym for "explanatory mechanism". Strauss and Corbin are really just concerned with describing and coding everything that is dynamic -- changing, moving, or occurring over time -- in the research setting.

Ref: http://www.analytictech.com/mb870/introtogt.htm