My vision upon this theme has changed, in a different way, how I perceive the case study aspect. I think now that a case study is something we do study not because it is related to the matter on hand but because this has something different, a different approach. We want to go deeper into the reflection of this particular case. Will come from this study not general knowledge about the researched field because this is a specific case but it will be more general information that will be contribute knowledge.
Case study is not only about the method you use. This is an help for you to help you get a good research question by looking at what's happening, you find the research opportunity, the right one.
This is more about narrowing the definition of what you look at, but because this is something we understand. And not make it a generalisation, not about that. A case study doesn't have to be constructed by a researcher.
Then, there is several things that needs to be cleared out in a case study or qualitative. The interviews for example. There is a social disability involved making the process of the research blurry and less clear. Meaning that if we come for the wrong reason, as my paper I had, talking about cyberbullying rewarded 20 dollars for the time spent, then people would just come without taking the research seriously, and would answer what they feel like they would need to make the research better from their point of view and not what they really think...
In the presentation of the research "One year free without a car" the subjects had no possible way to misinterpret the study. They were the heart of the thing. So it made the research very mistake proof in that sense.
As opposed to quantitative methods, qualitative method doesn't need a lot of test subjects. Most of the time the number of test subjects is very low. It is even possible to have one possible subject for the study. doesn't mean this is impossible to have a qualitative research with a very high number of test subjects but I think it would take more time to research it... The basic exemple of one subject for a study would be in the medical field with someone that has a specific decease, the only one in the entire world. Therefore the study would be focused on him and would still make for a qualitative study.
Hi! Thanks for your interesting thought!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on how rewards can have an influence on the answers that you get, but I think that this counts for all the research methods. In the case of your study I also think that a reward of 20 dollar is rather high, especially for a topic as Cyberbullying what is highly sensitive. However, according to studies a high reward doesn’t obviously mean that participants will participate better. And depending on whether the reward is given before or after the study, this idea of giving a reward can actually have a negative impact on the researcher as (s)he can be taken less serious, depending on the research field.
I think that per topic their should be thought of if it is necessary to reward the participants or not and what kind of reward this should be.
Hello, same like you I have carried out quite a lot from this theme. I also think that case study is very useful and reliable when it comes to empirical data collection. Even if one is focusing on small group of people he can find the most reliable answer, however, that answer might not be generalized as it fits only those particular cases. This results in collecting deep and rich data, which greatly contributes to the research. Thanks for your reflection!
ReplyDeleteYou have interesting thoughts. It was a good summary of the topic. The first paragraph of the case study was very clear on how to approach that type of study. And of course as you said, there is not a limit on how many or few participants that should be included in a qualitative study. It is about the type and quality of data and how it has been generated.
ReplyDeleteIn a case study, as well as in the other kinds of qualitative research, the personality of the researcher plays extremely important role. If he or she is a bad interviewer, the interview conducted by them will be poor, and even can misinterpret data.
ReplyDeleteAnd about the "construction of study": the researcher can impact it but to the certain extent so that his or her alterations/improvements could happen in the real world. Like in case with the car-free families: anybody could repeat it or adopt those practices even without researchers. That's different from the experiment which is completely constructed by the scientists.
Hi, thanks for the informative post! I like your explanation of case study which gives some in-depth knowledge perspective related to some key themes. Indeed, case study is more like a research approach that is used to generate an in-depth, multi-faceted understanding of a complex issue in its real-life context. It is an established research design that is used extensively in a wide variety of disciplines, particularly in the social sciences.
ReplyDeleteHi! Thanks for an interesting post, I agree with what you wrote about reward in research. The participants you chose for your study is vital, it's so important to chose the right people, and you (at least I wouldn't) want them compromised by thinking of a reward. I would want people to answer honestly, and not be thinking of what they "should" answer. The paper I read was also about cyberbullying, however no reward was given to the participants. Instead semi-structured interviews were done in groups of 4-5 people in 9th grade, and they did get some honest and good answers out of it. That's an approach I would prefer.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your really interesting post. I think you wrap up the theme very well. the lecture and seminar gave me, just like you, also a different understanding about what a case study is and how it differs from qualitative methods, etc. You said it really well that the main focus is not to achieve a specific kind of knowledge, but to understand a very specific case in order to build a research question. The basic difference to other researches - maybe also in the same field - are that the researchers are not trying to generalize the knowledge they gained, it’s just applicable in this specific case.
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