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This chapter summarizes many conceptual, theoretical, and methodological topics related to studying group communication using qualitative research methods. First, it explains five of the most common theoretical frameworks used by group communication scholars (i.e., symbolic convergence theory, bona fide group perspective, unobtrusive control theory, dialectical theory, and structuration theory). Next, it discusses best practices and issues related to different data collection methods including observations, historical case studies, ethnographies, focus groups, and interview studies. Then, the chapter describes two primary data analytic tools, various iterations of constant comparison method, and qualitative content analysis. Finally, the chapter describes several innovative qualitative methods that may lead to new understandings of group communication processes including discourse analysis and discourse tracing, as well as new approaches to collecting qualitative network data and mediated data. The chapter concludes with a discussion of future research suggestions.

This chapter gives one version of the recent history of evaluation case study. It looks back over the emergence of case study as a sociological method, developed in the early years of the 20th Century and celebrated and elaborated by the Chicago School of urban sociology at Chicago University, starting throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Some of the basic methods, including constant comparison, were generated at that time. Only partly influenced by this methodological movement, an alliance between an Illinois-based team in the United States and a team at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom recast the case method as a key tool for the evaluation of social and educational programmes.

This study is an attempt to increase the understanding of the hunting tourism customer. The purpose of the paper is to explore the characteristics, motivations, values and expectations of Finnish hunting tourists, and to try to distinguish between different types among them.

Twelve semi‐structured, narrative, face‐to‐face interviews were conducted. The study was conceived within an interpretive paradigm, in which a central aim is to understand the subjective world of the human experience. Constant comparison was used as a method of data analysis.

Several common features were distinguished among the interviewees. First, hunters' attitudes towards shooting and the importance of a bag have changed during the years. Second, a difference between an ordinary hunting experience and a hunting tourism experience was perceptible. Third, willingness to experience something new related to hunting was the most important hunting tourism motivation. The fourth common feature was the importance of the social component hunting tourism. Three different types of hunting tourists could be identified: responsible hunting tourists, adaptable hunting tourists and achievement‐oriented hunting tourists. The major distinguishing factors were the hunters' attitudes towards shooting, game farming and social relationships during the hunting trip.

The study is one of the few to investigate hunters as tourists.

This paper aims to investigate the unique issues childhood burn survivors experience in relation to sex education and sexual development.

Using a phenomenological approach, participants described their lived experiences with regards to sex education and the sexuality issues they encountered as child burn survivors. One‐to‐one semi‐structured interviews and a focus group were used to gather data, which were analyzed using a constant comparison method.

Results provide educators with better insight into the experiences of burn survivors as well as strategies for approaching sex education. Findings centered around five areas: exposure, sex education content, timing of sex education, characteristics of the educator and most appropriate methods of delivery.

Sexuality is a value‐laden topic that has the potential to increase apprehension and decrease willingness to discuss. As a result, the sample may not be wholly representative across age groups, concerns or social attitudes regarding sexuality present within this population. Additional limitations are also noted. Future studies, which utilize a mixed method approach with a larger sample of both adolescent and adult burn survivors, would increase the value and generalizability of the findings.

Research findings confirm that persons living with childhood burn injuries experience similar feelings and concerns regarding their sexuality as their able‐bodied peers which contradict social views. However, mainstream sex education falls short of addressing their unique needs and as such this study's findings provide strategies to allow for appropriate knowledge acquisition to ease the transition from childhood to adulthood.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify four common confusions in grounded theory (GT) use by demonstrating an example of the author's doctoral study into conceptualising higher education students' learning and knowledge sharing by exploring blogging phenomena. It seeks not only to present the author's personal experience and views, but also to shed light on the causes of the confusion for novice qualitative researchers.

A review of literature on GT and the author's practical experience of undertaking an empirical study into the blogging phenomenon in LIS discipline form the approach to addressing the issue.

The paper summarises four common issues that hinder inexperienced qualitative researchers when they undertake GT research: using GT as a methodology or method; how to use literature review; how to use coding strategy; and what is the generated theory.

The paper provides practical suggestions of what matters when adopting GT approach. It needs more new researchers to further confirm the suggestions that the author stated in terms of a researcher's unique experience.

The paper attempts to bridge the gap of insufficient discussion in the literature, focuses on new researchers' GT adopting experiences and provides them with practical directions.

This study investigated the effect of cooperative learning on the performance of female college students enrolled in “writing and research” courses at Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University (Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia). Cooperative learning (CL) activities were employed in place of traditional lectures and group activities. Two populations were compared, one with the CL methodology and one with traditional methodology. The results were assessed by final exam scores, final course grades, the number of students passing, pre and post-tests and a self-report survey. We found that this sample of Arab college students performed at a higher level in the CL classes than in the traditional classes. Findings suggest that CL is an effective method for teaching Arab college students.

This study investigates Rokkan's research programme in the light of the differences between case- and variables-based methodologies. Three phases of the research process are distinguished. Studying the way Rokkan actually proceeded in the research within his Europe project, we find that he follows the protocols of case-methodologies such as grounded theory. In the second phase of the research process, however, he constructs variables-based models as tools for his macro-historical comparisons. To get to variables from the sensitizing concepts coded in the first phase, Rokkan defines his variables as close to cases as possible: variables as nominal level typologies, types as variable values. He thus faces two interrelated dilemmas. First, a philosophy of science dissonance: he legitimates his research only with reference to a variable-methodology, while his research is thoroughly case based. Second, a paradox of double coding: using variable-based models in the second phase, the status of the knowledge available in the first phase memos is degraded. Rokkan cannot decide between the two main solutions to these dilemmas: The first solution is to discard his heterogeneous data, instead working only with homogeneous data that opens up to more consistently variables-oriented research. The second solution is to replace the notion of variables/variable values with typology/types, thereby returning to cases, pursuing comparative case reconstructions in the third phase of research. The study concludes in favour of the second solution.

As they say, “Change is the only constant.” Thriving and surviving during a period of extraordinary collision of technological advances, globalization, and climate change can be daunting. At any given point in one’s life, a transition can be interpreted in terms of the magnitude of change (how big or small) and the individual’s ontological experience of change (whether it disrupts an equilibrium or adapts an emergent way of life). These four quadrants represent different ways to live in a highly dynamic and complex world. We share the resulting four-quadrant framework from a quantitative and a mixed methods study to examine responses to various ways we respond to transitions. Contingent upon these two dimensions, one can use a four-quadrant framework to mobilize resources to design a response and hypothesize a desired outcome. Individuals may find themselves at various junctions of these quadrants over a lifespan. These four quadrants provide “requisite variety” to navigate individual ontology as they move into and out of fluid spaces we often call instability during a time of transition. In this chapter, we identified social, cognitive, psychological, and behavioral factors that contribute to thriving transition experiences, embracing dynamic stability. Two new constructs were developed, the first measures the receptivity to change, Transformation Quotient (TQ) and second measures the range of responses to transitions from surviving to thriving, Thriving Transitional Experiences (TTE). We hope our work will pave the way for Thriving to become a “normal” outcome of experiencing change by transforming the lexicon and expectation of engaging with transitions.