Case study

• Case study is an intensive study of a case which may be an individual, an institution, a system, a community, an organization, an event, or even the entire culture.
• Yin has defined case study as “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident, and in which multiple sources of evidence are used”.
• Kromrey holds that “case study involves studying individual cases, often in their natural environment and for a long period of time”
• Case study is not a method of data collection; rather it is a research strategy, or an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon by using multiple sources of evidence.
• Mitchell has also maintained that a case study is not just a narrative account of an event or a series of events but it involves analysis against an appropriate theoretical framework or in support of theoretical conclusions.
• Case study can be simple and specific, such as “Ram, the delinquent boy”, or complex and abstract, such as “decisionmaking in a university”. But whatever the subject, to qualify as a case study, it must be a bounded system/unit, an entity in itself.

Characteristics of Case Study;

• Hartfield has referred to the following distinguishing characteristics of case study:
  • It studies whole units in their totality and not some selected aspects or variables of these units.
  • It employs several methods in data collection to prevent errors and distortions.
  • If often studies a single unit: one unit is one study.
  • It perceives the respondent as a knowledgeable person, not just as a source of data.
  • It studies a typical case..

Purposes of Case Study;

• Following are the purposes of a case study :
  • To use it as a preliminary to major investigation as it may bring to light variables, processes and relationships that deserve more intensive investigation.
  • To probe the phenomenon deeply and analyse it intensively with a view to establishing generalizations about the wider population to which the unit belongs.
  • To get anecdotal evidence that illustrates more general findings.
  • To refute a universal generalization. A single case can represent a significant contribution to theory building and assist in focusing the direction of future investigations in the area.
  • To use it as a unique, typical and an interesting case in its own right.
• According to Berger et. al. reasons for employing case study method can be :
  • To get intimate and detailed information about the structure, process and complexity of the research object,
  • To formulate hypotheses,
  • To conceptualise,
  • To operationalize variables,
  • To expand quantitative findings, and
  • To test the feasibility of the quantitative study.

Types of Case Studies:

• Burns has stated six types of case studies:
  • Descriptive case studies:
    • These studies trace the development of an organization/system over time.
    • The study of an adult criminal right from his childhood through adolescence and youth is an example of this type of case study.
    • This type depends more on interviews, recording and documents.
  • Explanatory case studies:
    • These focus on observing a drunkard, a teacher, a student, a union leader, some activity, events, or a specific group of people.
    • However, the researchers in this type of study are rarely total participants or total observers.
  • Exploratory case reports:
    • These are usually first person narratives that the researcher collects using extensive interviewing of a single individual.
    • For example, the case of a drug addict or an alcoholic, or a prostitute or a retired person who fails to adjust himself in son’s family.
    • The use of this approach depends more on the nature and cooperation of the respondent.
  • Intrinsic case studies:
    • This form studies particular events. The views of all participants in the event are sought. For example, a communal riot: how it started with conflict between two persons of two different religious groups, how each person sought support of persons of his own religion present at the spot, how police was informed, how police arrested persons of one particular religious group, how power elite interfered and pressurized the police department, how did public and the media react, and so on.
    • Pulling all these views together, a depth is provided that contributes significantly to the understanding of the event.
  • Instrumental case studies:
    • This approach aims at understanding in depth a particular individual such as a patient in the hospital, a prisoner in the jail, a woman in a rescue home, a problem child in a school, etc.
    • These studies involve detailed interviews, observation, going through records and reports, and so on.
  • Collective case reports:
    • It is a collection of case studies or a form of replication, i.e., multiple experiments. For example, we can take three case studies and analyse them on replication logic.
    • This logic is that each case will either produce contrary results or similar results. The outcome will demonstrate either support for the initial propositions or a need to revise and retest with another set of cases.
    • The advantage of multi-case design is that the evidence can be more compelling. However, this approach requires more time and effort.

Sources of Data Collection for Case Studies;

• Two main sources of primary data collection are interviews and observation, while the secondary data are collected through a variety of sources like reports, records, newspapers, magazines, books, files, diaries, etc.
• The secondary sources may not be accurate or may be biased. But they specify events and issues in greater detail than interviews can.
  • The observation method used could either be participant or non-participant. The latter has been used more by sociologists in India like M.N. Srinivas, Sachchidananda, L.P. Vidyarthi, etc. For some topics, the non-participant observation is more suitable.
  • The observation method used could either be participant or non-participant. The latter has been used more by sociologists in India like M.N. Srinivas, Sachchidananda, L.P. Vidyarthi, etc. For some topics, the non-participant observation is more suitable.

Advantages of Case Study;

• It makes in-depth study possible.
• It is flexible with respect to using methods for collecting data, e.g., questionnaire, interview, observation, etc.
• It could be used for studying any dimension of the topic, i.e., it could study one specific aspect and may not include other aspects.
• It can be conducted in practically any kind of social setting.
• Case studies are inexpensive.
• Yin has referred to following three uses of single case study :
  • It provides a critical test of a theory to corroborate, challenge or extend it.
  • It helps in studying a unique case which is useful not only in clinical psychology but also in sociology for the study of deviant groups, problem individuals, and so on.
  • It helps in studying the phenomenon that occurs in a situation where it (the phenomenon) has not been studies before, e.g., studying the problems and rehabilitation of the sufferers of cyclones in the coastal areas (sociology of disaster), management of irrigation canals for the farmers, environment disasters, etc.

Criticisms of Case Studie;

• Case study method is generally criticized on the following basis :
  • Subjective bias : The case study design is regarded with disdain because of investigator’s subjectivity in collecting data for supporting or refuting a particular explanation. Many a time the investigator allows personal views to influence the direction of the findings and his conclusions.
  • Little evidence for scientific generalizations: It is said that case study provides little evidence for inferences and generalizing theory. The common complaint is: How can generalization be made from a single case?
  • Time-consuming : Case study is timeconsuming as it produces a lot of information which is difficult to analyse adequately. Selectivity has naturally a tendency to be biased. But if the case study is focused on relevant issues of person or event under study, it need not be lengthy.
  • Doubtful reliability: It is very difficult to establish reliability in the case study. The investigator cannot prove his authenticity for obtaining data or having no bias in analysing them. It is not easy to fix steps and procedures explicitly to the extent that others are enabled to replicate the same study.
  • Missing validity: The investigators in the case study fail to develop a sufficiently operational set of measures. As such, checks and balances of reliable instruments are found missing. For investigator, what seems true is more important than what is true. The case study can oversimplify or exaggerate leading to erroneous conclusions.The validity question also arises because the investigator by his presence and actions affects the behaviour of the observed but he does not give importance to this reaction while interpreting the facts. Yet one more argument against the case study is that it has no representativeness, i.e., each case studied does not represent other similar cases.
• Yin has criticized case studies mainly on three grounds :
  • The findings of case studies are biased because the research is usually sloppy. This criticism is probably based on the prejudice that quantitative researchers are against qualitative data. They think that only numbers can be used to describe and explain social life validly and reliably.
  • Case studies are not useful for generalization. One argument is that it is not possible to generalize from a single case. The other argument is that if a number of cases are used for the purpose, it will be extremely difficult to establish their comparability. Each case has too many unique aspects.
  • Case studies take too long time and produce unmanageable amounts of data. In fact, it is not the case study but the methods of data collection which are time-consuming.

Additional Notes;

Social Survey;

• The basic procedure in survey is that people are asked a number of questions on that aspect of behavior which the sociologist is interested in. A number of people carefully selected so that their representation of their population being studied are asked to answer exactly the same question so that the replies to different categories of respondents may be examined for differences.
• One type of survey relies on contacting the respondents by letter and asking them to complete the questionnaire themselves before returning it.
• These are called Mail questionnaires. Sometimes questionnaires are not completed by individuals separately but by people in a group under the direct supervision of the research worker.
• A variation of the procedure can be that a trained interviewer asks the questions and records the responses on a schedule from each respondent.
• These alternate procedures have different advantages and disadvantages. Mail questionnaires are relatively cheap and can be used to contact respondents who are scattered over a wide area.
• But at the same time the proportion of people who return questionnaires sent through post is usually rather small.
• The questions asked in main questionnaires have also to be very carefully worded in order to avoid ambiguity since the respondents cannot ask to have questions clarified for them.
• Using groups to complete questionnaires means that the return rate is good and that information is assembled quickly and fairly.
• Administrating the interview schedules to the respondents individually is probably the most reliable method. Several trained interviewers may be employed to contact specific individuals.
• The questionnaires and schedules can consist of both close-ended and open-ended questions. Also a special attention needs to be paid to ensure that the questionnaires are filled in logical order.
• Where aptitude questions are included great care must be exercised to ensure the proper words are used. In case of schedules emphasis and interactions may also be standardized between different individuals and from respondents to respondents.
• Finally proper sampling techniques must be used to ensure that the sample under study represents the universe of study. In order to enhance the reliability of data collected through questionnaires and schedules, these questionnaires and schedules must be pretested through pilot studies.

Nomothetic and Ideographic Methods;

• Ideographic and nomothetic methods represent two different approaches to understanding social life.
  • An ideographic method focuses on individual cases or events. Ethnographers, for example, observe the minute details of everyday life to construct an overall portrait.
  • A nomothetic method, on the other hand, focuses on general statements that account for larger social patterns that form the context of single events or individual behavior and experience.
  • Nomothetic Method refers to the approach of investigating large groups of people in order to find general laws of behaviour that apply to everyone.
  • Idiographic Method refers to the approach of investigating individuals in personal, in-depth detail to achieve a unique understanding of them.
  • “Nomos” refer to laws in ancient Greek; this approach assumes that an individual is a complex combination of many universal laws; it is best to study people on a large scale.
  • “Idios” refer to ‘private’ or ‘personal’ in ancient Greek; this approach assumes that humans are unique.
• According to Nomothetic Method, Quantitative Experimental methods are best to identify the universal laws governing behaviour. The individual will be classified with others and measured as a score upon a dimension, or be a statistic supporting a general principle (‘averaging’).
• According to Idiographic Method, Qualitative methods are best; case study method will provide a more complete and global understanding of the individual who should be studied using flexible, long terms and detailed procedures in order to put them in a ‘class of their own’.
• Advantages of Nomothetic Method – In line with the deterministic, law abiding nature of science, useful in predicting and controlling behaviour; nomothetic findings on prejudice and discrimination perhaps helpful (reduce discrimination)
• Disadvantages of Nomothetic Method – Superficial understanding of any one person; even if two persons have same IQ they may have answered different questions in the test; a person may have 1% chance of developing depression (but is he among the 1%?); classification manuals are not accurate and does not help people.
• Advantages of Idiographic Method: More complete and global understanding of an individual; sometimes the most efficient; often lead to results that spark off experimental investigation of behaviour.
• Disadvantages of Idiographic Method;– Difficult to generalize findings; Sociologists create universal theories on the basis of a limited and unrepresentative sample; Idiographic research tends to be more unreliable and unscientific (subjective, long term and unstandardised procedures) While comparing Sociology and History, Radcliff Brown said “sociology is nomothetic, while history is idiographic”. In other words, sociologists produce generalizations while historians describe unique events.

Content Analysis;

• Content analysis is a research method used to analyze social life by interpreting words and images from documents, film, art, music, and other cultural products and media.
• It has been used extensively to examine the place of women in society. In advertising, for example, women tend to be portrayed as subordinate, often through their lower physical positioning in relation to the males or the unassertive nature of their poses or gestures.
• Researchers can learn a great deal about a society by analyzing cultural artifacts such as newspapers, magazines, television programs, or music.
• This is called content analysis. Researchers who use content analysis are not studying the people, but are studying the communications the people produce as a way of creating a picture of their society.
• Content analysis is frequently used to measure cultural change and to study different aspects of culture.
• Sociologists also use it as an indirect way to determine how social groups are perceived. For example, they might examine how African Americans are depicted in television shows or how women are depicted in advertisements.
• In conducting a content analysis, researchers quantify and analyze the presence, meanings, and relationships of words and concepts within the cultural artifacts they are studying. They then make inferences about the messages within the artifacts and about the culture they are studying.
• At its most basic, content analysis is a statistical exercise that involves categorizing some aspect of behavior and counting the number of times such behavior occurs. For example, a researcher might count the number of minutes that men and women appear on screen in a television show and make comparisons.
• This allows us to paint a picture of the patterns of behavior that underlie social interactions portrayed in the media.

Strengths And Weaknesses of Content Analysis;

• Content analysis has several strengths as a research method. First, it is a great method because it is unobtrusive.
• That is, it has no effect on the person being studied since the cultural artifact has already been produced. Second, it is relatively easy to gain access to the media source or publication the researcher wishes to study.
• Finally, it can present an objective account of events, themes, and issues that might not be immediately apparent to a reader, viewer, or general consumer.
• Content analysis also has several weaknesses as a research method.
  • First, it is limited in what it can study. Since it is based only on mass communication – either visual, oral, or written – it cannot tell us what people really think about these images or whether they affect people’s behavior.
  • Second, it may not be as objective as it claims since the researcher must select and record data accurately.
• In some cases, the researcher must make choices about how to interpret or categorize particular forms of behavior and other researchers may interpret it differently. A final weakness of content analysis is that it can be time consuming.

Focus Group Discussion;

• Focus group Discussion is a form of qualitative research that is used most often in product marketing and marketing research. During a focus group, a group of individuals – usually 6-12 people -is brought together in a room to engage in a guided discussion of some topic.
• Focus groups are often used in social science research as well. Take William Gamson’s research on political views as an example.
• In 1992, he used focus groups to examine how U.S. citizens frame their views of political issues. He chose four issues for discussion: Affirmative action, nuclear power, troubled industries, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
  • First Gamson conducted a content analysis of the press coverage on these topics to get an idea of the media context within which the participants would be thinking and talking about these topics and politics in general.
  • Then he conducted the focus groups to observe the process of people discussing these issues with their friends.
• The participants of a focus group are selected based on their relevance and relationship to the topic under study.
• They are not typically chosen through rigorous, probability sampling methods, which means that they do not statistically represent any meaningful population. Rather, participants are chosen through word-of-mouth, advertising, snowball sampling, or similar, depending on the type of person and characteristics the researcher is looking to include.

Advantages of Focus Groups:

• There are several advantages of focus groups:
  • As a socially oriented research method, it captures real-life data in a social setting.
  • It is flexible.
  • It has high face validity, meaning that it measures what it is intended to measure.
  • It generates quick results.
  • It costs little to conduct.
  • Group dynamics often bring out aspects of the topic or reveal information about the subject that may not have been anticipated by the researcher or emerged from individual interviews.

Disadvantages of Focus Group:

• There are also several disadvantages of focus groups:
• The researcher has less control over the session than he or she does in individual interviews.
• Data are often difficult to analyze.
• Moderators require certain skills.
• Differences between groups can be troublesome.
• Groups can often be difficult to pull together.
• The discussion must be conducted in a conducive environment.

Preparing For The Focus Group:

• Identify the main objective of the focus group.
• Carefully develop your focus group questions. Your focus group should generally last 1 to 1.5 hours, which is usually enough time to cover 5 or 6 questions.
• Call potential participants to invite them to the meeting. Focus groups generally consist of 6-12 participants who have some similar characteristic (e.g., age group, status in a program, etc). Select participants who are likely to participate in discussions and who don’t all know each other.
• Send a follow-up invitation with a proposed agenda, questions up for discussion, and time/location details.
• Three days before the focus group, call each participant to remind them of the meeting.

Planning The Session:

• Schedule a time that is convenient for most people. Plan the focus group to take between 1 and 1.5 hours. Lunchtime or dinnertime is usually a good time for people, and if you serve food, they are more likely to attend.
• Find a good setting, such as a conference room, with good air flow and lighting. Configure the room so that all members can see each other. Provide nametags as well as refreshments. If your focus group is at lunch or dinnertime, be sure to provide food as well.
• Set some ground rules for the participants that help foster participation and keep the session moving along appropriately. For example: 1. Stay focused on the subject/question, 2. Keep the momentum of the conversation going, and 3. Get closure on each question.
• Make an agenda for the focus group. Consider the following: Welcome, review of agenda, review of the goal of the meeting, review of ground rules, introductions, questions and answers, wrap up.
• Don’t count on your memory for information shared at the focus group. Plan to record the session with either an audio or video recorder. If this isn’t possible, involve a co-facilitator who takes good notes.

Facilitating The Session:

• Introduce yourself and your cofacilitator, if you have one.
• Explain your need and reason for recording the focus group discussion.
• Carry out the agenda.
• Carefully word each question to the group. Before a group discussion, allow everyone a few minutes to carefully record his or her responses or answers. Then, facilitate discussion around the answers to each question, one at a time.
• After the discussion of each question, reflect back to the group a summary of what you just heard. If you have a note-taker/cofacilitator, he or she may do this.
• Ensure even participation among the group. If a few people are dominating the conversation, then call on others. Also, consider a round-table approach in which you go in one direction around the table, giving each person a chance to answer the question.
• Close the session by thanking the participants and telling them that they will receive a copy of the report generated as a result of the discussion.

Immediately After The Session:

• Verify that the audio or video recorder worked throughout the entire session (if one was used).
• Make any additional notes on your written notes that you need.
• Write down any observations you made during the session, such as the nature of participation in the group, any surprises of the session, where and when the session was held, etc.

Serendipity;

• In general, serendipity is the act of finding something valuable or delightful when you are not looking for it. In information technology, serendipity often plays a part in the recognition of a new product need or in solving a design problem.
• Web surfing can be an occasion for serendipity since you sometimes come across a valuable or interesting site when you are looking for something else.
• The term was coined by English writer Horace Walpole on January 28, 1754, in a letter written to Horace Mann. He credited it to a “silly fairy tale” he once read called ‘The Three Princes of Serendip’.
• Three goodly young princes were traveling the world in hopes of being educated to take their proper position upon their return. On their journey they happened upon a camel driver who inquired if they had seen his missing camel. As sport, they claimed to have seen the camel, reporting correctly that the camel was blind in one eye, missing a tooth, and lame. From these accurate details, the owner assumed that the three had surely stolen the camel, and they were subsequently thrown into jail. Soon the wayward camel was discovered, and the princes brought to the perplexed Emperor of the land, who inquired of them how they had learned these facts. That the grass was eaten on one side of the road suggested that camel had one eye, the cuds of grass on the ground indicated a tooth gap, and the traces of a dragged hoof revealed the camel’s lameness.
• This exotic tale, told of ancient princes of Sri Lanka, then known as Serendip, inspired Horace Walpole, the English novelist (e.g., The Castle of Otranto), politician, and belle lettrist. In this last capacity, Walpole coined the term ‘serendipity” while writing to the British diplomat, Horace Mann, in January 28, 1754. Walpole created serendipity to refer to the combination of accident and sagacity in recognizing the significance of a discovery.

Serendipity in classical fieldwork:

• Qualitative research inevitably contains such “good fortune,” but serendipity consists in how we transform our fortune into substantive discovery.
• Since Malinowski (1950), many fieldwork classics provide evidence of the importance of interpreting and capitalizing on unpredicted, unplanned events. Yet, traditionally, ethnographers were reluctant to discuss their errors and chance occurrences, even when these events proved to be the basis of subsequent insight, perhaps fearing that it would confirm the belief that ethnography was truly dilettantism. Hortense Powdermaker (1966) recognized this absence when she remarked:
• Little record exists of mistakes and learning from them, and of the role of chance and accident in stumbling upon significant problems, in reformulating old ones, and in devising new techniques, a process known as “serendipity.” A lack of theory, or of imagination, an over commitment to a particular hypothesis, or a rigidity in personality may prevent a fieldworker from learning as he stumbles.
• With the growth of the “reflexive turn” in ethnography – what some have labelled the “new ethnography” (Dowd, 1994), the inclusion of occurrences of serendipity in accounts of fieldwork is a battle won long ago, perhaps contributing to the heroic image of the ethnographer who pulls meaning from chaos. We have come to present ourselves as lovers of the play and surprise of research. Although we now have what Atkinson (1990) described as a “mythological corpus” of ethnographers’ tales of discovery – frequently in the form of ” confessionals” we know little of how serendipity operates in qualitative research. The conceptualization of the dimensions of serendipity must be made more explicit. The question becomes: How do our own lived experiences of insight lead to substantive discovery?

The serendipity pattern:

• The most influential attempt to apply the concept of serendipity to social scientific theorizing has been the one by Robert Merton. As Merton (1962) noted, “There is a rich corpus of literature on how social scientists ought to think, feel, and act, but little detail on what they actually do, think, and feel” (p. 19). Merton (1968, p. 157) provided a systematic attempt to make sense of serendipity in sociology, speaking of the serendipity pattern, whereby unexpected data provide the spark for the creation of theoretical analysis. For Merton three features characterize datum that fit into a serendipity pattern: it must be “unanticipated,” “anomalous,” and “strategic” (i.e., with implications for the development of theory).
• Merton, of course, operated from the scientific model described above, which is also implicated in the princes’ tale. That is, a real world exists for which clues provide insight. In contrast to a positivist (or postpositivist) view, we suggest that serendipitous insight provides the opportunity for constructing a plausible story. We do not deny the reality of an external world, but only suggest that numerous possible explanations exist and that chance events can be made serendipitous if the event provides the opportunity for storybuilding. In this way, story-telling is a means, not an end. We use stories in much the same way as researchers might use an illustrative case decorating a statistical study. Our stories are intended as supporting evidence for the paper’s conclusions and, it is hoped, permit the reader to experience an abbreviated version of the verstehen and inference processes of the researcher. 

The End of the Blog : Case study