If anyone can help me I will be forever indebted to you!!! Seriously!

Here's my situation: I am using Strauss & Corbin (1990) GT. I have participant observations (not transcribed but notes taken of them), patient interviews (transcribed), and follow up patient interviews (transcribed)
I also have clinician interviews (transcribed)

I have 'groups within groups' of participants, i.e. :

Clinicians: 1. nurses 2. GPs 3. specialists

Patients: 1. newly diagnosed 2. stable 3. end-stage

I've open coded the interviews and coming up to axial coding. However when you have groups like I do above (Ady I seem to remember you have a similar structure?) how do you conduct axial coding (and subsequent theoretical coding/focused coding)? Did you axial code each group-within-group and then axial code the entire group e.g. entire patient group?

I really am drowning in data and confusion at the moment and can't see my supervisor for a little while. Please help!

Rachel

Only seeing this now as I have been a bit unwell of late! I'll have a think about it and get back to you :-)

not sure what I have to say will help but...

I suppose, on reflection, I did axial code within my different groups but ultimately what I was trying ot do was refine my original open codes by re-visiting them, comparing and contrasting time and time again. As time went on I stopped thinking of them within their different groups and treated them together. although I admit this was not a conscious decision. I finally conflated all my open codes to four main axial categories. From these I extracted a core category and then a substantive grounded theory.

In my opinion, and it is only that (!) although you may have different sub groups, it is a grounded theory of your overall study you are trying to produce - no? Also, while you can have similar codes for different groups, they may just be looking at an issue from a different perspective. If you continue to treat your groups as separate enteties throughout your thesis, it will be difficult to formulate an overall conclusion to your work I think.

I had everything in an excel file and refined, refined that way. My supervisor used GT many years before me in his PhD and said he literally printed things out and spread them out on the floor and refined them that way. I didn't use computer software so I am not sure how easy it is to work between and among groups at the same time - possibly another argument for not using software?!? I felt I was more in control of the process with my 'clunky' excel file. By the time I had finished I could genuinely claim that I knew my data!

Best of luck with it Noctu
:-)