Pre-theme 6 : Qualitative and case study research

Text read :
Maybe you don't want to face it, a perspective on cyberbullying. Impact factor 2.69.

1. Which qualitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?
2. What did you learn about qualitative methods from reading the paper?
3. Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the qualitative method or methods have been improved?

 I've chosen the article "Maybe you don't want to face it", the cyberbullying perspective upon the children nowadays. Pusblished by Computers in Human Behaviour, which is very accurate in this case. The aim of the study is to understand and know in a more qualitative manner how the cyberbullying is percieved and how it affects the learning process. This is a new way of bullying that appeared in this new age with all this growing technology (e.g Internet mostly). This has often been proved that cyberbullying has an long term effect on the victim and can lead to suicide.
The researchers used a qualitative method in order to acquire data and information about how this subject is percieved in the student community. They mostly used qualitative because a lot of studies has been done using and based only on quantitative method. The benefice being a deeper understanding without any distraction in their way of thinking.

The paper offered a new vision on how the qualitative method needs a better understanding of the definition we are trying to research on. In this case, cyberbullying. If student cannot grasp the idea behind it, what it really represents (And not just the weird dude on the internet) then the research can be cleared from confusion and we can move forward with the research. Because this is kind of a prevention programme and if the risks aren't known or understood, then the prevention doesn't work, useless.

So the main methodological problems was to clear student's head from false idea or bad understanding, then through small group, six groups (from 6 to 10 students) the researchers gathered data on how it was percieved. The importance here was the anonymity that the research provided so the participants were open to discussion and reflection. There were a total of 54 participants, mostly women found through the board at school or information places at the school. Thery were compensated with 25$ for their time. The compensation here may be a methodological problem. In fact, I think it is. Because if we tried to clear the ideas, the definition is for the participant to be pure in their reflection. Telling them they will be compensated with 25$ may altere this idea and students would join the study just for the 25$ and may not give honest answer after all...

Briefly explain to a first year university student what a case study is !

I would go for a definition that shows the difference with the actual researchs. A case study aims to prove a hypothesis based on a specific case. You don't start with a developped hypothesis, just enough to get you started. From that, you find an organisation, company, person that will help you use as a basic to your case study. During this study, you collect data, information, etc from this specific case and you analyse them. They are intimatly related. The ultimate goal is to understand the case in all it's complexity.

Use the "Process of Building Theory from Case Study Research" (Eisenhardt, summarized in Table 1) to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your selected paper.

The researchers used a very well explained definition of their study allowing the participants to have a clear mind and match what they were expecting to do. Therefore, the result shows a wider perspective on the subject studied. Eisenhardt suggested that it is important in order to not confuse the researchers with wrong answers that will blurr the orignal aim. (e.g. GPS in Anders's study) They also gathered information through different channel. This is a very nice thing to do since it doesn't stop the researcher from only point of views. On the other hand, they based their study on only 3 cases. Eiseinhardt recommended that a it should be between 4 to 10 case studies in order to get a better understanding of the situation.