Compared too last week qualitative method and case studies was not new for me. Case studies are used in a wide range of disciplines like business, law, medicine and technology. The ability to go beyond quantitative researchers and understand human behaviors and their perspective through a combination of qualitative and quantitative researcher is one of the main advantages with using case studies (Eisenhardt & Grebner 2007).
I have never done a case study in my previous studies therefor depending on my research question it would be a pleasure to have the opportunity to do my thesis on a case. Case studies take place within the situations which activity take place so data can be conducted in the context of its use (Yin, 1984). This why I'm a drawn towards case research, the possible to capture reality. Publish a research within a case presents a realistic and contextually situation where unresolved problems are faced in real life situations. (Dresch et al, 2015).
What I realized after discussing case studies at the seminar is how messy the processes of cases are. But it’s also thorough this messy and iterative processes innovations or knowledge production can develop. Also analyzing data can be quite challenging because of combined methods and the back and forward process between data and analysis.
In my first blog post for theme 6, I missed out to write about the challenge of generality within case. No case research can be typical because the sample is usually small and unique so it’s hard to estimate if findings are representative for a larger population. However a case study’s aim is in general to build and develop theories not to test theory. In my selected qualitative study “why do people share their context information on Social Network Services” I stated that the population was to small to be representative however the purpose was probably not to generalize, the researcher wanted to understand human action and their behavior in social network services (Gephart 2014). They hade to choose a sample that was extreme to gain theoretical insight. In this study it was only 4 people that were heavy user of SNS but they needed them for theoretical reasons, the criteria was important for unusual research accesses. (Eisenhardt & Grebner 2007)
A car-free year was an interesting study using a combination of methods and collected data through interviews and observations. Their main focus was qualitative data. They gained a lot of data so they had to make some decisions what to focusing on. It was too much material to handle all of it. If I compare with my selected case research “Who's Watching Whom?” the downside of “Who's Watching Whom?” was just the attempt to handle a to big volume of data, Humphreys tried to capture to much so in my perspective he missed out the overall perspective to compare with Hasselqvist. The risk of being overwhelmed by data is high within a case study. The aim of A-car free year and other case research is not to answer questions or already have formulated hypotheses, its about gaining knowledge throughout the process from data and analyzing, than come up with a hypothesis, hypotheses are formulated from the processes. Case studies are flexible it can take any directions. Compared to pure quantitative method where you prove or disprove a hypothesis. A case study is hypothesis-generating (Eisenhardt & Grebner 2007).
All in our group had problems with finding case studies within media technology I guess it depends of the discipline. Because when I was looking at management studies I fund a lot of different case studies, I believe its more common to use a design-oriented research within media technology.
References:
Dresch Aline & Valle Antunes, José (2015). Design Science Research: A Method for Science and Technology Advancement. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
Eisenhardt K. M., Graebner M. E. (2007) ‘Theory Building from Cases: Opportunities and Challenges’, Academy of Management Journal 50(1): 25–32.
Gephart, R. P. 2004. Qualitative research and the Academy of Management Journal. Academy of Management Journal, 47: 454–462.
Yin, R.K., (1984). Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Beverly Hills, Calif: Sage Publications.
Hi! Thanks for your interesting reflection!
SvaraRaderaI would like to add to the generizability of the results. Just as you mention the purpose of a case study is probably not to generalize as it is often with a small group and in a certain setting, this gives the opportunity to gain rich data but not necessarily a lot of data. However I do think that in certain situations, as in the paper that I chose it is necessary to gain more to get good results. For instance in my paper there was a class observed and in the end only two were interviewed. This lead to the results confirming to the assumptions that the researcher had already made and that shouldn’t be the aim of the research.
It's nice to see someone mentioning the risk of being overwhelmed with data as a part of case studies. What about the risk of lacking data? In the car free year, what if all three families would have died in an accident? To have very few people in your sample could also pose a risk.
SvaraRaderaThanks for also mentioning that generalizing isn't necessarily the purpose with a case study, thus not really a problem.
Hello! Thanks for well-prepared posts and nice reflecting! My attention was grasped by your notions on the large amount of data which was collected in the case study of a car-free year. I believe that's a common problem not only with case studies but in every scientific topic: the ability to limit the focus with the respect to the desired versatility. Bringing the dimension of social media into the picture, for example, has to have a well-justified purpose on the study. In the case of a car-free year I also feel like there was almost too much going on at the same time in the project. One could have done a whole another study about the social media commenting by using qualitative frame analysis. Every decision has to add up value in a sense that the findings are truly relevant when considering the aim of the study. Otherwise it might just feel like one tries to swallow too big of a piece at once!
SvaraRaderaWell done! I like that you used also other references.
Hi,
SvaraRaderaThank you for an interesting post.
As you say, I think case studies can be perceived a bit messy, but I think it is necessary to keep the purpose of the study in mind - same goes with the presumption of all research having to be generalisable. After all, a lot of qualitative research is not quite valid for generalisations either - but the results are still considered grounded.
As there are various methods and theories, the results of them have to be approached in various ways as well. As you say, case studies is mainly about building theory - therefore, it’s more appropriate for using as a foundation for further research (which in turn can aim to find generalisable features).