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Abstract

The present paper demonstrates a research method combining Grounded Theory and Network Analysis for the inductive generation of a theory solely based on the empirical data being analyzed. This method was developed during my PhD research on the utilization of a virtual community (case study in Wikipedia) in formal Education institutions (tertiary or secondary education). The focus of this paper is on demonstrating the research method developed during this study. Networked Grounded Theory constitutes a remodeling of Grounded Theory and the rationale for the inclusion of Network Analysis techniques into the process of theory generation is explained. The software used and the steps followed are presented in detail in order to help other researchers to utilize the method or adapt it to meet their own research pursuits.

Keywords

Grounded Theory, Network Analysis, CommunityDetection, Conceptual Network, ATLAS.ti, Gephi, Wikipedia in Education

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a scholarship from the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (IKY). I would like to express my deep gratitude to Professor Konstantinos Koskinas, my PhD supervisor, for his enthusiastic encouragement and useful critiques of this research work.

Publication Date

2-24-2014

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2014.1270

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