Essentials of Accessible Grounded Theory

Phyllis Noerager Stern, DNS, LLD (hon.), RN, FAAN, is Professor Emerita and Glenn W Irwin, MD Research Scholar at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis. She studied with Barney G Glaser and Anselm Strauss while pursuing her doctoral degree at the University of California, San Francisco in the 1970s. Over the ensuing decades, she has been engaged in doing grounded theory and publishing both research and methodological articles and book chapters. In 1994, she coined the terms Strausian and Glaserian to label the two schools of grounded theory analysis. Phyllis is known for her mentoring ability; as editor of the scientific journal Health Care for Women International from 1984 to 2001, she launched numerous first-time authors. In 1984 she organized the International Council on Women’s Health Issues in Nova Scotia, Canada, and held the position of Council General until 2002. Phyllis has held faculty positions at California State University Hayward, University of California San Francisco, Northwestern State University at Shreveport, Louisiana, and Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 2008 she was named a Living Legend by the American Academy of Nursing. Caroline Jane Porr, BScN, RN, MN, PhD, CIHR Strategic Training Fellow, received her doctorate in nursing from the University of Alberta in November 2009. She employed grounded theory methodology at the doctoral level to delineate the process of establishing therapeutic relationships in the context of vulnerability and stigmatization. Caroline’s requisite research knowledge, skills and mentoring were honed during a two-year Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) strategic training initiative as a doctoral fellow at The International Institute for Qualitative Methodology.