Conducting a Grounded Theory Study in a Language Other Than English: Procedures for Ensuring the Integrity of Translation

Abstract

Translation can be a problem area for researchers conducting qualitative studies in languages other than English who intend to publish the results in an English language journal. Analyzing the data is also complex when the research team consists of people from different language backgrounds. Translation must be considered as an issue in its own right to maintain the integrity of the research, especially in a grounded theory study. In this presentation we offer guidelines for the process of translation for data analysis in a grounded theory study in which the research was conducted in a language other than English (Indonesian). We make recommendations about procedures to choose when, who and how to translate data. The translation procedure is divided into four steps which are: translation in the process of coding, translation in the process of team discussion, translation in the process of advanced coding and ensuring the accuracy of translation.