Symbolic Interactionism in Grounded Theory: A Viewpoint for Explaining the Student-Educator Relationship in Clinical Nursing Education

Introduction: Although it is generally acknowledged that symbolic interactionism and grounded theory are connected, the precise nature of their connection remains implicit and unexplained in reviewed articles. Awareness of the nature of their connection can help qualitative researchers as guidance for data collection and analysis. This study was accomplished with the aim of exploration of the connection between grounded theory and symbolic interactionism. Method: The search of related articles and resources was done in databases such as Scopus, Elsevier, Google Scholar, and ProQuest and with keywords including grounded theory, symbolic interactionism, and methodology. Then the selected articles were reviewed. Results: In this study, researchers, by reviewing of related articles, have propounded the connection between methodological principles and processes of Blumer in the symbolic interactionism with grounded theory. Then, they have argued about the explanatory power of symbolic interactionism as a philosophical basis in a grounded theory study in the explanation of student-teacher relationship in clinical nursing education. Conclusion: When the grounded theory study is undertaken without a symbolic interactionism framework as an explanatory framework, the researcher describes rather than explains the data.

Keywords:

Symbolic interactionism , Grounded theory , methodology