Friday (29/7) the Center for Indigenous and Cultural Psychology (CICP) of the Faculty of Psychology held the “Theory Building Training: Grounded Theory & Qualitative Writing on Grounded Theory” event. The event was delivered by Dr. Bagus Riyono, M.A., Psychologist and Prof. Drs. Subandi, M.A., Ph.D., Psychologist. The purpose of this event is because universities have a central role in the advancement of science. In addition, Theory Building Training is a series of activities that provide material on research methodology.
The first speaker at this event was Dr. Bagus Riyono, M.A., Psychologist who explained the grounded theory philosophically first. “Before we discuss grounded theory as a method or as a technique, I want to convey it first philosophically because when we only consider grounded theory as a technique and do not live up to its philosophy. I’m afraid it will be mechanistic when doing grounded theory studies.”
Furthermore, Bagus explained that science is a human effort to understand what is happening and reality. “Why do we have to understand reality because we really want to know what science really is or more generally, science aims to find truth at various levels and the most superficial level is often called reality.” But reality is sometimes blocked by veils, such as perceptions, prejudices, and so on and science aims to uncover these veils so that we get the real reality.
To be able to reveal reality or open the veil of reality, there are 3 sources or approaches. The approach that is quite popular so far is the quantitative approach. which is supported by the philosophy of positivism which considers reality as something that can be measured. The second approach, not through measurement, but through excavation or commonly called phenomenology. Finally, the third approach is revelation as instructions from God conveyed through the holy books. “The source of truth because it has been proven that the journey of life and human experience has been written in the holy book until the end of time with their respective languages / terms,” explained Bagus.
The second session of the event was delivered by Prof. Drs. Subandi, M.A., Ph.D., Psychologist. So, theorizing emerged as a natural process of understanding the world and the reality around them. So, everyone can make a theory. Finally, theories can be divided into lay (general) theories, pseudo-scientific theories, and scientific theories,” explained Subandi. In addition, Subandi also explained that the theory is not fixed in nature, can change due to new events or phenomena.