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HL: Understanding case studies

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  • Psychology textbook/
  • 1. Research in psychology/
  • Qualitative research methods/
  • HL: Understanding case studies

ATL: Essential understandings

Case studies study a behaviour over time through the use of triangulation.

Case studies are often seen as more credible than other research methods.

There are limitations in the extent to which a case study may be generalized.

A case study is defined as an in-depth investigation of human experience. A single case can be one person, but it could also be a family, a social group, an event or an organization. The design of a case study can be a single case study or multiple case studies where a series of cases are compared.

The case study often takes place in the participant’s natural environment. For example, a single case study may involve interviewing staff in a computer company on the effect of having all employees work in one large "open space" office. This information could eventually be used to make decisions about the use of space in other companies.

Case studies can be intrinsic case studies and instrumental case studies. Intrinsic case studies represent nothing but themselves.  Intrinsic case studies are often focused on resolving a problem or better understanding a specific case.  For example, an intrinsic case study may want to look at the implementation of a new student-to-student counseling program at a school that has a bullying problem.  There is not a goal of generalizing the findings, but to investigate the effectiveness of the program in that specific school.  Instrumental case studies represent more general phenomena of interest, such as losing a child, being homeless, or being diagnosed with cancer. The goal of such case studies it to draw conclusions that may be applied outside of that original case.

According to Willig (2014), a case study should always be seen in context. The researcher should include psychological, sociocultural, historical, or biological dimensions that are relevant to the phenomenon under investigation. It is important to specify the context in which the case is explored - for example, a case study on resilience in street children could focus on early development, family relations, personality, and social support. Although a case study may be narrowly focused, modern researchers do not believe that individuals can be understood in isolation.

The case study is not a research method itself, but rather a research strategy. Data for case studies can come from a number of methods, such as semi-structured interviews, participant observation, diaries, personal notes (e.g. letters, photographs, notes), or official documents (e.g. case notes, clinical notes, appraisal reports), as well as questionnaires.

Case studies use triangulation. Because they are complex, it is believed that using different perspectives will result in rich data and a better all-around understanding of the situation. Conclusions based on multiple sources are considered to be more credible. Research on resilience in a group of street children, for example, might use focus groups, semi-structured interviews, and observations, as well as accounts from adults in the community and newspaper articles on street children.

Evaluation of the case study method
Strength: Case studies provide rich data.
Strength: The case study method uses triangulation which increases the credibility of the findings.
Strength: The case study gives researchers the possibility to investigate cases that could not be set up in research laboratories.
Strength: Case studies may contradict established theories and helps to develop new theories.  One example is the case study of severely deprived Czech twins, who showed remarkable recovery when they were placed in a caring social environment. This challenged the established theory that the early years of life determined human social development. This case and similar studies of deprived children have shown that some (but not all) children are resilient, and this has sparked off research into factors that promote resilience.
Limitation: Case studies cannot be replicated and a single case study cannot be generalized to a wider population.
Limitation: There is a potential risk for researcher bias in case studies, in that the researcher’s own beliefs can influence the way the data are collected and analyzed.
Limitation: Qualitative data depend to a large extent on people’s perceptions and memory. The reliance on memory when reconstructing the case history could be subject to distortion. Participants in case studies may also change their accounts in order to appear more socially acceptable. However, this could be the case in most research studies.

Generalizing from a single case study

It has been argued by researchers within the quantitative tradition that a case study cannot be of any value outside the case because it cannot be replicated, it cannot be used for prediction, and the results cannot be generalized. Qualitative researchers do not agree.

However, the discussion among qualitative researchers shows some disagreement as to how generalization can be made. A single case study normally uses a small sample that has been purposively selected so that it is not statistically representative. This makes it difficult to generalize findings to other populations. However, if evidence from other studies confirms the findings, it is argued that it is possible to generalize to other people who are similar to those in the case study.

A single case study may be used for inferential generalization - that is, the findings can be applied to similar settings if the researcher has provided a “rich-thick” description of the phenomenon and the context. This is referred to as “transferability”.  The results of single case studies can also be generalized to existing theory - that is, theoretical generalization - but not to populations. If researchers can replicate the pattern found in the single case study, then the theory derived from the single case study gains in robustness.

Research in psychology

A ban on smoking in enclosed public places came into force in Scotland on 26  March 2006. The legislation makes it an offense to smoke or to permit smoking in such premises. Scotland's Health Improvement Agency commissioned a study to examine changes in attitudes and smoking behaviour among bar customers and bar workers. They also assessed changes in the cultural contexts in which smoking and drinking take place.

The study collected data from a cohort of bar customers, bar workers, and bar managers from selected premises both before and after implementation of the smoke-free legislation. In-depth interviews were conducted, along with five one-hour observations in each of the selected premises. All of these observations were conducted by a middle-aged, male observer from outside the study who matched the broad customer profile of the study bars. Data collection was restricted to covert non-participant observation.

Systematic observations were conducted within each area in order to observe the social practices within different social contexts of smoking and non-smoking during the 3 – 6 months before the legislation came into force, immediately after implementation, and 6 to 9 months post-implementation. Each location was sampled at various points in time and across the study period to ensure that time-of-day and seasonal effects were accounted for. Observational templates were developed in order to collect data on key indicators, such as the type of the place and the use of the space, the characteristics and behaviours of the smokers/non-smokers, ashtrays and positioning of smoking materials, as well as any violations of the ban.

Checking for understanding

1. Why is the above study considered a case study?

The study is actually a series of case studies carried out in different locations.  The study is longitudinal, naturalistic, and uses method triangulation. In this case, it is also a prospective case study as measures were taken before the implementation of the smoking ban.

2. Discuss ethical considerations for this study.

There are ethical issues involved in covert observations in a community context, in particular, the potential to violate the principle of informed consent and the need to avoid invading personal privacy. However, all the places in which data collection occurred were public places and the individuals and the specific locations and individuals remain protected by anonymity and confidentiality. No personal information for individual participants should have been revealed in the report. It is also a question of how the community was debriefed and the deception revealed. It may or may not be the case that trust was established with the members of the community and that this deception could be seen as a violation of that trust.

3. Evaluate the use of interviews in order to carry out the above study.

Interviews could be used to determine how people are behaving as a result of the change. This would avoid the ethical concerns which are discussed above. Observations may describe behaviour, but they are not able to understand the motivations or attitudes with regard to the behaviour. Interviews would allow the researcher to both record current behaviours and understand how the individual feels about the new law. Interviews, however, could lead to social desirability effect - where the individual says "what people want to hear." Especially with regard to the bar owners, it is probable that they will be less than objective about their own compliance with the law.

Checking for understanding

Which of the following is not true of a case study method?

 

 

What does it mean if a case study has "transferability?"

 

 

Which of the following is an example of an intrinsic case study?

The study on mindfulness is looking to test the effectiveness of a program with a goal of giving information back to the school so that they can use that information for their own purposes.  The other studies are all more general with the hope of making some form of generalization outside of the context in which it was studied.

 

What is meant by the statement: The case study is not a research method itself, but rather a research strategy?

A defining characteristic of a case study is that it uses method triangulation.  It is not a method in and of itself - but is a combination of research methods.

 

Why are case studies often considered to have high credibility?

 

 

A case study is done on small, Catholic school in rural Kenya to see how they deal with bullying.  What is important to consider when looking at the transferability of the findings?

 

 

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References: introduction and research methods