What is it about?
Research methods can sometimes exclude people with severe/profound intellectual disability due to their diverse abilities to participate and express their perspectives. It is important to find ways to enable their participation and capture their expressions, so their own ‘voice’ can inform their care and support. Classic Grounded Theory is one way of doing research. It looks at what people do or their behaviour to understand how they experience their world. We argue that Classic Grounded Theory can provide researchers with an opportunity to undertake quality research with people with severe/profound intellectual disabilities.
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Why is it important?
Other researchers have pointed out numerous difficulties regarding including persons with severe/profound intellectual disabilities in research projects. Rigor of qualitative research is critical as trustworthiness of outcomes is often questioned. Therefore, a discussion on rigor of this methodology is important, as well as putting forth the usefulness of video data to analyse the populations behaviours and better understand their experiences of the world.
Perspectives
Examples from our own application of classic grounded theory with persons with severe/profound intellectual disabilities illustrate how the method can work with this population, result in explaining theories and findnings with trustworthiness.
Dr Lisbeth Nilsson
Lund University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Classic Grounded Theory: A Rigorous Methodology for Research Involving Participants With Severe/Profound Intellectual Disabilities, British Journal of Learning Disabilities, December 2024, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/bld.12635.
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