Competencies and occupational-biographical experiences of Deaf teachers in Austria and Germany

The research builds upon the methodology of Constructing Grounded Theory (Charmaz 2014). Grounded Theory (Strauss and Glaser 1967) traditionally uses the Inductive Strategy which suits Deaf Studies Research (Kusters, De Meulder & O ́Brien 2017). This is why this approach is also used in this dissertation. The phase of data collection starts with a sample of six narrative interviews (Rosenthal 2011) with Deaf teachers from Germany and Austria serves as a means to focus on the interviewee’s biography in relation to their role as teachers. The interviews were videotaped and consequently transcribed. The survey phase is followed by an analysis of the data using MAXQDA, which is currently the PhD project’s stage. Integrating the transcription data into the program allows for constructing Initial Codes and Focused Codes (Charmaz 2014) and subsequently developing code categories. For Constructing Grounded Theory (Charmaz 2014) it is important that researchers go back to the community and discuss results of the first analysis providing Communicative Validation with participation of the Deaf teachers based on the categories identified from the data. Final results will be analyzed again thus informing theoretical hypotheses.