Increasingly philosophers and scientists have affirmed that all
knowledge is theory-laden and that methods are theory-driven. These
assertions raise important questions related to the role of theory in
qualitative research. There are scholars who propose that qualitative
research can enhance understanding and expand theoretical knowledge from
a disciplinary perspective. And there are others who contend that
qualitative inquiry is purely inductive and that its validity can
therefore be judged by the extent to which preconceived theory is absent
from it. The purpose of this article is to examine three qualitative
methods, grounded theory, ethnography, and phenomenology, and their use
in nursing in order to explicate the role of theory in knowledge
development. The authors propose that, by nature, inquiry, discovery,
and theoretical interpretation coexist simultaneously and must be
recognized as such if the theory-research linkage is to advance nursing
science through qualitative research.
