Yes indeed, Grounded theory is a pragmatic research methodology used extensively in qualitative research. So pragmatism is the heart of Grounded theory and can be traced to Charles Sanders Peirce who was a research philosopher working in the US in the second half of the 19th century.

Pragmatists believed that knowledge was a coping strategy for achieving human ends and therefore if humans contruct something that works for them, then it was right. They used the term "true" to refer to somehting that works. This idea underpins grounded theory and points to the practical value of academic research in the working experience.

Mohamed Thank you for your response. This is very helpful.

Linda - my argument would be that all qualitative research (and quantitative) has the potential to be pragmatic; it's purely about the approach and intention of the researcher/s. All methodologies have the potential to be 'practically applied' and problem-solving - but a lot of research isn't practical and, with qualitative research in particular, has the potential to be merely 'navel-gazing'.

I agree with Dean! For myself, I tie pragmatism (maybe erroneously) to rigour. I find I place pragmatism on a scale of poor to well-done research combined with nice-to-know to incredibly useful results. I keep asking how the researcher expects to apply the outcomes to a community rather than getting a well-designed study disseminated. I'm qualitative at heart, but its hard to break into funding and programming development worlds when there are no numbers to back up claims - therefore, use mixed methods for that greater purpose.

Linda, you might have to argue against using mixed methods with mixed methods literature?!

This article doesn't speak directly to pragmatism, but the argument fits...

Giddings, L.S. (2006). Mixed methods research: Positivism dressed in drag? Journal of Research in Nursing, 11(3), 195-203. doi: 10.1177/1744987106064635

Haven't read this one...but it looks interesting!

Biddle, C., & Shafft, K.I. (2014). Axiology and Anomaly in the Practice of Mixed Methods Work Pragmatism, Valuation, and the Transformative Paradigm. Journal of Mixed Methods Research. doi: 10.1177/1558689814533157

Dean, Thank you for your comments. They're helpful.

Natasha. Thank you for your comments and the references which I'll follow up.

Are you saying that qualitative research that uses another approach that is perceived to be more 'rigorous' than pragmatism is somehow seen to be more valid than if a qualitative stance is used? If a researcher uses mixed methods and the statistical results seem to be weaker than the qualitative data, is this preferable to using strong qualitative data results?

Hi Linda,

Not sure that you can really equate 'statistical weakness' against 'stronger' qualitative data. They are so different - that they cannot be compared really.

Natasha - like the citation title 'positivism dressed up in drag' - will have to get copy of that one

Dean Thank you. I'm just working how to explain my change of tack in methodology wise to my PhD supervisor.....

Try looking up "Critical realism" as a way of describing what you do

Paul, Thank you.

Perhaps this is a bit too late to add since this thread is more than 2 years old but I'd like to add this here for the benefit of any other researchers who stumble upon this conversation just like I did (Thanks everybody btw, great conversation!). This is an old publication that discusses the epistemological lineage of Action Research, which can be used qualitatively.

Oquist, P., 1978. The epistemology of action research. Acta Sociologica, 21(4), pp.143-163.