The course was an important experience for me. What is a theory? What does it do? How do you know? How can you coax a theory to emerge, and how do you relate theory to your empirical material on the one hand and to existing literature on the other? I’ve taken arts and social science theory courses from bachelor to doctoral level but this is the first to address these issues head on through lectures, and exercises involving a degree of “force majeure”. Very different disciplinary approaches to theory were presented in lectures and grappled with during group exercises. It was an intense experience and not always pleasant, but through the course I’ve gained understandings essential for my growth as a researcher and success in my dissertation project. My advice? Take this course! You’ll do much more than “cover” material in the course plan. You’ll gain insights into your own theoretical practice and tools to develop it long after the course ends.
- Mary Fraser Berndtsson, PhD candidate, Lund University
This course has been very enriching and enjoyable. It has tremendously contributed to my growth as a PhD student and as researcher. Assignments in this course was a unique learning opportunity. The course was very well-designed for each session added to the larger objective of the course which was helping us to explore theory building through both inductive and deductive approach. The exciting group work component of the course, coupled with strong theoretical foundations, gave me opportunities to explore and experiment with ways of thinking about theory building from literature review and theory building from data. I have learned to critically evaluate the research articles, and to ignore my prior knowledge when analyzing data in order to get new insights for further development. Having taken this course, I feel better equipped to face the challenges of the academic world and to hopefully succeed as a researcher.
- Jurgita Giniuniene, PhD candidate, Kaunas University of Technology
This course was very valuable for me. It was a challenging and enlightening experience, which guided through the process of generating theory from data. The course provided me with a deeper understanding of theory building by using Grounded Theory methods and techniques, which had inspired the way I am structuring and analyzing my own data. The course underlines that confusion is a royal path to knowledge and that knowledge and ideas gained from the course keeps emerging in the period after the course. The course organizers were very dedicated and opened up for valuable discussions between course organizers and PhD students from multidisciplinary fields throughout the week.
- Karin Aagaard, PhD candidate, Aalborg University Hospital
The TBRP PhD course is a great way to kick-start your theory building process as well as to challenge and refine existing thoughts that you might already have. The course also offers great opportunities for networking and cross-fertilization between otherwise separated research domains.
- Daniel Carnerud, PhD candidate, Mid Sweden University
Thank you for a very inspiring and interesting week in Halmstad. The course has initiated many thoughts and reflections on what an inductive vs. deductive approach to research is, including the many definitions of what a deductive and inductive approach might be. It has been very inspiring and instructive to meet Ph.D.-students from other fields of research. It puts your own research into a critical perspective and sharpens your reasoning for your own methodological choices. Following the course I have a better understanding of how and where to incorporate theory in the research process as well as what it takes to generate new theory.
- Siri Lygum Voldbjerg, PhD candidate, Aalborg University Hospital
Indeed the course was great and I had a great time in Halmstad. I informed a colleague of mine about how great the course was and what an opportunity he missed, especially as he is using grounded theory and he regrets not having applied for the course. It was a good starting point for me especially on how to use grounded theory methods and techniques. I will be reflecting on the insights given during the course. I also liked the debate and advice given on my research. Thank you once again for giving me the chance to attend the course.
- Ann Njeri Kariuki, PhD candidate, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology
The course is offered by several very experienced professors, and gives PhD students a different logic to do research, i.e., building theory instead of testing theory. The content of the course is quite informative, from the philosophy of management research to ways of building theory. I learnt a lot from real examples of building theory, which also made understanding abstractive methods relatively easy. The course is organized in various ways, including lectures, debate and team work, and these activities make the five-day study very intensive and wonderful. As a first year PhD student, I really believe this course is an excellent beginning for my PhD journey.
- Xinyue Zhou, PhD candidate, Aalborg University
This is the one course I would highly recommend for 'PhD starters'. The perspectives shared by this course is invaluable, and it soothes the 'confused' mind that often characterize 'PhD starters'.
- Gideon Jojo Amos, PhD candidate, Halmstad University
For sure, this course is a good course that I can recommend to a friend. Though mainly focuses on qualitative and inductive view, yet I enjoyed the way delivery of materials was organized through a mixture of lecture-based and interactive teaching methods, including group assignments, guidance and feedback sessions to the identified issues and challenges pertaining to our PhD work. I am also glad I had the opportunity to attend this course as I learnt a lot on the two main research methodologies, i.e., inductive and deductive, such that I am able to clearly distinguish them and at least judge on their applicability. The debate on these two approaches added more clarification for better understanding the practical application of the concepts. I also acknowledge that the course fee that we pay might be too small for the service we are receiving, including the two dinners and the many lunches and breakfast we attended. As such I label the course to be of more service oriented than being a business one. Generally, I would like to thank organizers and facilitators at large for their valuable care during the entire course period.
- Siwel Yohakim Nyamba, PhD candidate, Aalborg University