First Grounded Theory seminar-workshop held at USTGS

The Graduate School, through the initiative of the Office for Graduate Research and in partnership with the Philippine Association for the Sociology of Religion (PASR), held the very first Grounded Theory seminar-workshop at UST. The three-day event held at the Thomas Aquinas Research Complex from October 6-8, 2015, was facilitated by Dr. Foster Fei, a graduate of PhD in Management (Organizational Behavior), University of Bath and a fellow of the Grounded Theory Institute, California, USA. It aimed to orient and train the participants on the tenets of Grounded Theory as a research method or approach and a way of thinking about and conceptualizing data and to introduce them to a new perspective of looking at research.

Participants, 43 in all,  were not only students and administrative officials of the Graduate School and officers of PASR but also student and faculty researchers from various local institutions, such as the De La Salle University-Dasmariñas, PAREF Southridge School, Centro Escolar University, Isabela State University, Far Eastern University, La Consolacion College-Mendiola, University of the Philippines, University of Antique, Isabela State University, Arellano University, Guimaras State College, Catanduanes State University, University of San Carlos-Cebu, Quirino State University, Mapua Institute, and Colegio de San Juan de Letran.

The seminar-workshop was the Graduate School’s way of bringing Grounded Theory closer to a wider circle of researchers. Dr. Fei substantially tackled what Grounded Theory is, the data analyses involved in Grounded Theory, open and selective coding, procedures in Grounded Theory research, sampling and theoretical coding and the differences between qualitative research and Grounded Theory.

On the third day of the seminar-workshop, no less than the founder of Grounded Theory, Dr. Barney Glaser addressed the participants’ queries via video conferencing.

The said seminar-workshop is deemed as the starting point for the realization of the dream of  establishing a Grounded Theory Institute in the Philippines.