Sunday, February 7, 2010

Memo #6

Why is nagging such an interesting behavior to study? I don't know if I can ever get anything from it.  Concept or theory ... nah! A zillion miles from it.

So far, all I obtained from the conversations with the participants were merely descriptions of what, why, when, who and how. Nothing emerged, yet. This is more  like I'm doing phenomenology than GT.
The mistake I made  is clear now. This study of nagging  was supposed to be using phenomenology. Three years a go, before my encounter of the third kind with GT, I decided to use phenomenology for my study. I couldn't come up with a proposal because the literature review wasn't exhaustive. Anyway, it wasn't my fault, the studies or articles related to nagging were so few  and mostly mentioned as an effect of dissatisfaction. The studies were always denotated as conflict in the family.There were no mentions of theory or concept of nagging. The only consolation and possibly motivation for me to continue  the study was actually the lack of literature in nagging. So I thought,  may be I should push the boundary further by using GT.

But my experience with the nagging literature and phenomenology will definitely have great influence on my conceptualizing the phenomenon. 

My supervisor wanted me to proceed with nagging because she sees its significance. She believes that it'll be a great study.  I don't quite agree with her because GT wasn't her expertise.  She is an ethnographer. Some fellows from the GT Institute also wanted me to do nagging. They said it's interesting. But still I have worries that must be resolved.

Is this the right substantive area of study? Or is nagging actually the initiation stage of other things to come?

Help me, Grounded Theorists!


3 comments:

Lonely Dissertator-No-More said...

With GT, isn't "nagging" just the start? The starting place may not end up to be the "substantive area," right? (Besides, I've always understood substantive area to be a "sample" rather than a "concept" -- may be wrong here.) You may end up somewhere else if you keep following your coding/memoing, correct? I would follow the theoretical sampling, if I were you and not give up quite so quickly. The urge to give up is quite common in CGT because of the uncertainty in the process. I've been there, and now may have passed that hump. But it takes time.

Steven Krauss (@ Abd. Lateef) said...

Pak Ngah, If I may say so, I like the nagging idea for a study. I think it's very fresh. However, I think there's a lot of psychology to it that you may have to delve into. Not sure what THAT means from a CGT perspective, but it could lead to a new line of probing and querying when you sit down with your study participants.

Steven Krauss (@ Abd. Lateef) said...

Pak Ngah, to continue with my last comment, nagging has to do with the self. From my understanding, we nag when we see something done by/about someone else that we don't like in ourselves. In effect, it's a sort of self-condemnation that is transferred onto the one outwardly committing the reviled action. It's easier to 'take it out' on someone else rather than ourselves. That's very human, in fact. Anyway, if you focus your theoretical sampling on the thought processes, decisions and feelings that lead to and relate to nagging it might help. All the best!!