The Role of Generative AI in Qualitative Research: GPT-4's Contributions to a Grounded Theory Analysis

Authors

Ravi Sinha, Utah State UniversityFollow
Idris Solola, Utah State UniversityFollow
Ha Nguyen, Utah State UniversityFollow
Hillary Swanson, Utah State UniversityFollow
LuEttaMae Lawrence, Utah State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Proceedings of the 2024 Symposium on Learning, Design and Technology

Author ORCID Identifier

Ravi Sinha https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3494-1813

Idris Solola https://orcid.org/0009-0009-5696-3504

Ha Nguyen https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7138-1427

Hillary Swanson https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5953-6780

LuEttaMae Lawrence https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6066-5096

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

Publication Date

6-21-2024

Journal Article Version

Version of Record

First Page

17

Last Page

25

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Abstract

We present reflections on our experience using a generative AI model in qualitative research, to illuminate the AI's contributions to our analytic process. Our analytic focus was a segment of classroom transcript, which captured a teacher introducing scientific theory-building practices to middle school students. We used a grounded theory approach to produce a fine-grained characterization of the teacher's talk moves during the lesson implementation. Our eventual goal is to build a more nuanced conceptualization of responsive teaching in the context of theory-building activities. We involved GPT-4 during the initial exploratory and later focused coding stages. For our analysis of GPT-4's contributions to the analytic process, we analyzed our notes and analytic memos, along with video recordings of meetings where we discussed insights in response to GPT-4's input. We present vignettes to illustrate pivotal moments where AI contributed to the coding process, including code generation, comparison, and refinement. The paper presents our experiences of conducting qualitative research in partnership with generative AI, underscoring the role that emerging technologies can play in the analysis of data and the development of grounded theory.

Recommended Citation

Ravi Sinha, Idris Solola, Ha Nguyen, Hillary Swanson, and Luettamae Lawrence. 2024. The Role of Generative AI in Qualitative Research: GPT-4’s Contributions to a Grounded Theory Analysis. In Symposium on Learning, Design and Technology (LDT ’24), June 21, 2024, Delft, Netherlands. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 9 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3663433.3663456