One of the unique aspects of historical research is that it combines the evidence of past events and the context within which these events happened to paint a wholesome picture of the past. Granted, some of the information sources will be biased, and some—those giving second-hand narrations—will feature incomplete information, which is why a methodology like theoretical grounding ensures you attain an acceptable level of objectivity in your data collection.

Why Theoretical Grounding Is Important in Historical Research

To take full advantage of this skill and correctly apply it to your research, you must first understand how grounded theory works. In using grounded theory as a qualitative research method, you approach your project with the intent of unearthing data. You then use this information to draw a theory or theories that explain the phenomenon.

You’ll need to have your theoretical framework in place and understand the “why” of your research. These two pieces of the research structure puzzle help keep your project within a well-defined scope, so you don’t deviate from your questions. As Brazilian professor José Carlos Libâneo puts it: você precisa de um guia passo a passo para desenvolver uma compreensão profunda sobre o que é embasamento teórico e como aplicá-la em seu trabalho de pesquisa. (You need a step-by-step guide to developing a deep understanding of the theoretical basis, and how to apply it in your research work.)

 

In a nutshell, you’ll be relying on:

1. Primary sources like artifacts, official documents, photographs, letters, and diaries.
2. Secondary sources like witness accounts, articles, books, and scholarly work interpreting the events.
3. Your analysis of all the information you’ve sourced for accuracy.

You’ll then:

1. Interpret the information, and
2. Construct a narrative

So, you find the data, and, following careful analysis, the data leads you to a sound theory. Here are a couple of reasons why historical research theories should be grounded in data:

No Hypothesis to Cloud Your Research

The grounded theory approach to historical research means you are going into your project with an open mind. But you do not have a fixed hypothesis that you’re trying to prove. This eliminates the risk of skewing your findings toward a desired angle as you try to prove or disprove your theory. This can happen unintentionally due to confirmation biases. If you have no hypothesis to work with, however, you can take a more balanced approach when finding data.

Gives Room to Refine Your Research Questions

As you begin researching, you have no idea where your findings will lead. So you’re relying on the initial questions you prepared to guide your quest. However, as you discover new details and analyze your sources’ responses, you may need to add more pertinent questions or change the nature of your questions altogether. The decision to make this change is guided by the kind of answers to your initial question(s).

According to Studybay mentor Dr. Mariana Costa, the more refined your questions become, the more information you’re likely to get, and the richer your research is likely to be. Ask open-ended questions to give your respondents room to share as much detail as possible. But always bear in mind that some of their responses may be biased. So, wear your critical analysis hat when assessing the answers to sift what’s relevant or correctly categorize the responses.

Benefits of Grounded Theory

What are the benefits of theoretical grounding for historical research? Let’s look at some of them in detail below:

Leads to New Discoveries

Using the grounded theory approach to historical research is one way to make novel discoveries as a researcher. For example, are there links between a previous series of events and the event you’re researching? If this link was previously unknown, you could be on your way to documenting a discovery.

Helps with Objectivity During Research

Since you rely on the answers you get to formulate your follow-up questions, there is little risk that confirmation bias could influence your narrative. You are not looking for a specific ending. Neither are you working with a preset type of data. Instead, the evidence you gather from your research participants leads to the discovery.

Supports Collection of Massive Data Amounts

Because of the open-ended nature of the research method, grounded theory makes it possible for a researcher to gather huge volumes of data. Ample data helps in several ways:

1. It’s enough for you to make conclusive deductions.
2. More data to work with might lead to more valid data. Even if a large percentage of the findings is invalid, you’re likely to still have sufficient amounts of valid statistics to work with.
1. By contrast, if you used a different methodology to collect a limited amount of data and most of it is unreliable, you’ll have to repeat the process.
3. It saves you time in that you don’t keep going back to gather information until you have enough of it.

Challenges of Grounded Theory

Researchers may face a few challenges when using the grounded theory approach to finding data, including:

Difficulty Finding the Right Participants

Grounded theory is cyclical, in that you keep interviewing old and new participants based on the results of your initial findings. The rolling basis of the interviews also requires you to find the right people to interview, which can be hard to do. For example:

1. The concerned people may have relocated and are hard to trace
2. Some may be long-dead
3. You may not find people who know the history well
4. Their recollection of events may be poor

It’s Time Consuming

You may end up collecting more data than you anticipated. You only stop gathering data when you reach theoretical saturation, which is the point where additional data you gather does not add any new information to what you have deduced so far. Factor in the time you spend analyzing the data, and it adds up to a substantial time investment.

Tips to Improve Your Historical Research Process

1. Research the topic thoroughly so you know which findings or responses carry more weight.
2. Have a comprehensive theoretical framework to steer your process.
3. Constantly compare your data for patterns.
4. Document data insights as you go to help solidify your theory and simplify the narrative formation process.

Conclusion

Theoretical grounding ensures that your historical research findings have enough factual backing to make them valid and credible. Remember, historical events are best explained by analyzing what happened and the factors that may have led to the happenings. Finding the evidence that proves historical events, therefore, gives weight to your narrative.