Case study Smadiyar Tansholpan 306 group
In the social sciences and life sciences, a case study (or case report) is a descriptive, exploratory or explanatory analysis of a person, group or event. An explanatory case study is used to explore causation in order to find underlying principles. Case studies may be prospective (in which criteria are established and cases fitting the criteria are included as they become available) or retrospective (in which criteria are established for selecting cases from historical records for inclusion in the study).
ANOTHER SUGGESTION IS THAT CASE STUDY SHOULD BE DEFINED AS A RESEARCH STRATEGY, AN EMPIRICAL INQUIRY THAT INVESTIGATES A PHENOMENON WITHIN ITS REAL-LIFE CONTEXT. CASE STUDY RESEARCH CAN MEAN SINGLE AND MULTIPLE CASE STUDIES, CAN INCLUDE QUANTITATIVE EVIDENCE, RELIES ON MULTIPLE SOURCES OF EVIDENCE, AND BENEFITS FROM THE PRIOR DEVELOPMENT OF THEORETICAL PROPOSITIONS. CASE STUDIES SHOULD NOT BE CONFUSED WITH QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AND THEY CAN BE BASED ON ANY MIX OF QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE EVIDENCE. SINGLESUBJECT RESEARCH PROVIDES THE STATISTICAL FRAMEWORK FOR MAKING INFERENCES FROM QUANTITATIVE CASE-STUDY DATA. THIS IS ALSO SUPPORTED AND WELL-FORMULATED IN (LAMNEK, 2005): "THE CASE STUDY IS A RESEARCH APPROACH, SITUATED BETWEEN CONCRETE DATA TAKING TECHNIQUES AND METHODOLOGIC PARADIGMS. "
THE CASE STUDY IS SOMETIMES MISTAKEN FOR THE CASE METHOD, BUT THE TWO ARE NOT THE SAME.
A CASE STUDY IS AN INQUIRY INTO AN EVENT BY EITHER AN INDIVIDUAL OR AN ORGANIZATION. IT IS PRODUCED THROUGH SYSTEMATIC RESEARCH, ANALYSIS AND REPORTING. CASE STUDIES CITE PROFESSIONAL OR SCIENTIFIC SOURCES AND THEY ARE OFTEN USED IN DEVELOPING NEW PROCEDURES IN MARKETING, MEDICINE AND TECHNOLOGY. THEY ARE DESIGNED TO ASK THE QUESTIONS "HOW" AND "WHY" OF AN EVENT, PROCEDURE OR PHENOMENA. IF YOU ARE ABOUT TO BEGIN A CASE STUDY, IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU DEVOTE PLENTY OF TIME TO ACCURATE DATA GATHERING AND ANALYSIS. CASE STUDIES CAN TAKE PLACE OVER A FEW WEEKS TO A FEW YEARS. READ MORE TO FIND OUT HOW TO DO A CASE STUDY.
How to Do a Case Study
DEVELOP YOUR RESEARCH QUESTION. THIS MAY BE GIVEN TO YOU IN ADVANCE BY A PROFESSOR OR EMPLOYER, OR YOU MAY DEVELOP IT ON YOUR OWN. MAKE SURE THE QUESTION IS SPECIFIC AND CAN BE ANALYZED BY SCIENTIFIC OR MODERN RESEARCH METHODS. DO NOT CHOOSE A QUESTION THAT IS INHERENTLY SUBJECTIVE. FOR EXAMPLE, INSTEAD OF A QUESTION LIKE "WHAT IS THE FAVORITE SOCIAL MEDIA WEBSITE FOR PEOPLE AGED 18 TO 20? " YOU MAY WANT TO USE "WHAT IS THE MOST VISITED SOCIAL MEDIA WEBSITE FOR PEOPLE AGED 18 TO 20. " CASE STUDIES ARE CLASSIFIED INTO DIFFERENT CATEGORIES. AN INSTRUMENTAL CASE STUDY WILL SEEK TO FIND A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING INTO A QUESTION. A COLLECTIVE CASE STUDY ANALYZES CASES IN ORDER TO FIND UNDERSTANDING ABOUT A PHENOMENON. AN INTRINSIC CASE STUDY LOOKS MORE DEEPLY INTO AN ALREADY ESTABLISHED CASE.
MAP OUT THE PROTOCOL, STRATEGY OR STRUCTURE FOR THE CASE STUDY. THIS WILL ALLOW YOU TO CREATE AN OUTLINE FOR HOW YOU WILL START AT YOUR QUESTION AND END WITH A WELL-THOUGHT-OUT PAPER. THE FOLLOWING ARE SAMPLE STEPS IN A CASE STUDY STRATEGY. DEVELOP A PURPOSE AND RATIONALE FOR THE CASE STUDY. CREATE 4 OR 5 BULLET POINTS THAT YOU INTEND TO ANSWER, IF POSSIBLE, IN THE STUDY. CONSIDER PERSPECTIVES ON APPROACHING THE QUESTION AND THESE BULLET POINTS. DECIDE HOW YOU WILL COLLECT DATA. DEPENDING UPON THE QUESTION, YOU MAY WANT TO CONSIDER 1 OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING DATA COLLECTION PROCESSES: REPORT COLLECTION, INTERNET RESEARCH, LIBRARY RESEARCH, INTERVIEWING SCIENTISTS OR RESEARCH SUBJECTS, OTHER FIELDWORK AND MAPPING CONCEPTS OR TYPOLOGIES. USING MORE THAN 1 DATA COLLECTION PROCESS WILL ADD AUTHORITY AND ACCURACY TO YOUR CASE STUDY. DESCRIBE THE ENTIRE CASE AND THEN ANALYZE IT SYSTEMATICALLY. THIS WILL REQUIRE TIME AND A WORD PROCESSING PROGRAM. YOU SHOULD BECOME FAMILIAR WITH CITING SOURCES. THE PROCESS SHOULD INCLUDE A STEP THAT CONFIRMS INTERVIEWS OR FINDINGS BEFORE IT IS PUBLISHED.
CREATE YOUR INTERVIEW OR RESEARCH QUESTIONS. THEY SHOULD EACH AIM TO WORK THROUGH A PORTION OF YOUR QUESTION. THIS IS ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT IF YOU PLAN TO INTERVIEW EXPERTS AND/OR RESEARCH SUBJECTS. MAKE SURE THAT EACH QUESTION YOU ASK IS A QUESTION THAT CANNOT BE ANSWERED WITH A YES OR NO ANSWER, UNLESS YOU ARE CONFIRMING IDENTITY OR PARTICIPATION. FOR EXAMPLE, "WHAT CHANGES HAVE BEEN MADE TO IMPROVE THIS PROCESS? " RATHER THAN "DID YOU MAKE CHANGES TO IMPROVE THE PROCESS? " THESE QUESTIONS CAN ALSO BE IN STATEMENT FORMAT, SUCH AS "PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW THE CURRENT PROCEDURE WAS DEVELOPED. "
COLLECT YOUR DATA OVER A PERIOD OF WEEKS OR MONTHS. MAKE SURE TO TAKE YOUR TIME TO ENSURE YOU HAVE AMPLE DATA WHEN YOU NEED TO ANALYZE AND RESPOND TO THE RESEARCH DATA. RESEARCH NEW AVENUES ONLY IF THEY APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE CASE STUDY QUESTION YOU ARE ASKING.
COLLECT ALL OF YOUR DATA IN 1 PLACE AND ANALYZE IT. AFTER READING AND REFERRING BACK TO YOUR ORIGINAL BULLET POINTS, YOU MAY FIND THAT THE DATA REACTS IN A SURPRISING MANNER. YOU NEED TO PULL YOUR INFORMATION TOGETHER AND FOCUS IT BEFORE WRITING CASE STUDIES. IF YOU ARE WORKING WITH MORE THAN 1 PERSON YOU WILL WANT TO ASSIGN SECTIONS FOR COMPLETION TOGETHER TO MAKE SURE YOUR CASE STUDY WILL FLOW. FOR EXAMPLE, 1 PERSON MAY BE IN CHARGE OF MAKING CHARTS OF THE DATA YOU GATHERED, WHILE OTHER PEOPLE WILL EACH WRITE AN ANALYSIS OF 1 OF YOUR BULLET POINTS YOU ARE
WRITE YOUR CASE STUDY INTO A NARRATIVE. UNLIKE SCIENTIFIC STUDIES, A CASE STUDY IS CREATED TO BE USED ACROSS FIELDS. IT SHOULD PROVIDE A BEGINNING, MIDDLE, END AND THEME THAT CAN BE UNDERSTOOD BY PEOPLE WITH INTIMATE OR CURSORY KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUBJECT. BEGIN BY DESCRIBING THE RESEARCH QUESTION IN YOUR INTRODUCTION. IT CAN BE REFERRED TO AS A PROBLEM OR MYSTERY THAT NEEDS TO BE SOLVED. EXPLAIN THE SETTING AND THE KEY PLAYERS THAT WILL BE REFERENCED THROUGHOUT THE PAPER. INCLUDE ANY INFORMATION THAT NEEDS TO BE DEFINED OR BACKGROUND THAT SHOULD BE GIVEN IN ORDER FOR THE READER TO UNDERSTAND THE DATA ANALYSIS. CONTINUE THE NARRATIVE IN SECTIONS EXPLAINING YOUR RESEARCH METHODS AND THE RESULTS OF YOUR RESEARCH. INCLUDE CHARTS, GRAPHS, PHOTOS OR ANY OTHER EXPLANATORY DEVICES THAT WILL GIVE THE READER A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR RESEARCH. DETAIL QUESTIONS THAT YOUR RESEARCH RAISED OR POTENTIAL PROBLEMS. WRITE A CONCLUSION THAT DETAILS THE HYPOTHESIS THAT ATTEMPTS TO ANSWER THE RESEARCH QUESTION. YOU MUST MAKE SURE THAT YOU SUGGEST A THEORY, NOT A FACTUAL ANSWER ABOUT WHAT YOU HAVE FOUND. YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO SUGGEST FURTHER AVENUES OF STUDY THAT WOULD HELP TO CONTINUE RESEARCH ON THE SUBJECT.
Proof and fact check your case study. If you are using quotes from sources or data from an unreliable source, you should attempt to find a better source or remove it. This is sometimes called "establishing rigor. " Make sure your case study is credible, transferable, verifiable and dependable.
Publish your case study. This can be done for a course, business report or journal.
Tips It is important to remember that a case study does not aim to answer the research question definitively. Its aim is to develop 1 or more hypotheses about the answer.
Things You'll Need Word processing program Research question Library Research subjects Case study strategy
An average, or typical, case is often not the richest in information. In clarifying lines of history and causation it is more useful to select subjects that offer an interesting, unusual or particularly revealing set of circumstances. A case selection that is based on representativeness will seldom be able to produce these kinds of insights. When selecting a subject for a case study, researchers will therefore use information-oriented sampling, as opposed to random sampling. Outlier cases (that is, those which are extreme, deviant or atypical) reveal more information than the potentially representative case. Alternatively, a case may be selected as a key case, chosen because of the inherent interest of the case or the circumstances surrounding it. Or it may be chosen because of researchers' in-depth local knowledge; where researchers have this local knowledge they are in a position to “soak and poke” as Fenno[6] puts it, and thereby to offer reasoned lines of explanation based on this rich knowledge of setting and circumstances. Three types of cases may thus be distinguished: Key cases Outlier cases Local knowledge cases
Whatever the frame of reference for the choice of the subject of the case study (key, outlier, local knowledge), there is a distinction to be made between the subjestorical unity [7]through which theoretical focus of the study is being viewed. The object is that theoretical focus – the analytical frame. Thus, for example, if a researcher were interested in US resistance to communist expansion as a theoretical focus, then the Korean War might be taken to be the subject, the lens, the case study through which theoretical focus, the object, could be viewed and explicated. Beyond decisions about case selection and the subject and object of the study, decisions need to be made about purpose, approach and process in the case study. Thomas thus proposes a typology for the case study wherein purposes are first identified (evaluative or exploratory), then approaches are delineated (theory-testing, theory-building or illustrative), then processes are decided upon, with a principal choice being between whether the study is to be single or multiple, and choices also about whether the study is to be retrospective, snapshot or diachronic, and whether it is nested, parallel or sequential. It is thus possible to take many routes through this typology, with, for example, an exploratory, theory-building, multiple, nested study, or an evaluative, theory-testing, single, retrospective study. The typology thus offers many permutations for case study structure. A closely related study in medicine is the case report, which identifies a specific case as treated and/or examined by the authors as presented in a novel form. These are, to a differentiable degree, similar to the case study in that many contain reviews of the relevant literature of the topic discussed in the thorough examination of an array of cases published to fit the criterion of the report being presented. These case reports can be thought of as brief case studies with a principal discussion of the new, presented case at hand that presents a novel interest.