Constructivist Grounded Theory Method Application in Urban and Regional Planning Researches

How does the framework of the planning research process define the elements of the ontology, epistemology, methodology, and methods continuum to employ a constructivist grounded theory method? This paper aimed to provide a rationale for use of such a method for urban and regional planning research. Embedded within the framework of the emic approach in planning research, the theory describes it from the participants’ points of view, generating a perspective on how they recognize it as a real, meaningful process. The underlying values and shared perceptions can be deciphered in urban and regional planning applications through recognition of the significance of stories and narratives on the factors involved in planning processes. In a constructivist grounded theory method, the researcher’s approach is explicitly based on the assumption that any theoretical interpretation suggests an interpretive image of the universe under investigation rather than a detailed image thereof. Constructivist inquiry begins with experience and how members construct it. In other words, constructivists recognize their interpretation of the studied phenomenon as a construction, a step forward in participants’ understanding of meaning. The application of the theory was described and analyzed in this research in accordance with the process proposed by Charmaz. The data for analysis of the participants’ mental elements were provided through semi-structured in-depth interviews. After the pre-coding steps, including data collection and implementation, were taken, the data analysis stage and the three phases of coding, i.e. initial coding, focused coding, and, finally, theoretical coding, were delineated.Furthermore, the conceptualization processes in constructivist grounded theory were highlighted using memo-writing and theoretical saturation. The recognition of this approach among those adopted to the theory and its successive process, which is applicable to planning research with a descriptive-analytic method, has resulted from extensive theoretical studies and the practical experience of applying the process as a survey. It can be concluded that the constructivist grounded theory method can be applied to arrangement of urban and regional planning, detection of planners’ understanding of the outcomes of planning, the planning environment, and the social context. Given the spatial nature of planning theories, middle-range content planning associated with a particular situation is applicable in their practice. In the present study, the scholar’s philosophical position was realized through adoption of constructivism. The ontological and epistemological bases of the research—the relativist ontological position and the subjectivist epistemological position—are consistent with the research purposes, plan, and methodology. The constructivist grounded theory was focused here on the measures, interactions, and social processes of planners.