Theoretical Approach, Methods, and Definitions

To build the foundation for the rest of the book, this chapter provides an overview of my general theoretical approach to this research—using a foundation of social constructivism, the book uses Communities of Practice Theory to understand qualitative researchers, big social researchers, and data curators. The chapter then provides a summary of my research methods—literature review and a qualitative content analysis. Finally, the chapter defines key terms that I use throughout the book: qualitative data, qualitative data reuse, big social data, and big social research.