Qualitative case studies

From Driscollwiki

Stake, R. E. (2000) Qualitative case studies. In Denzin, N. K. & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (443-466). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Case study

What can be learned about the single case?

Defined by interest in an individual case, not by the method of inquiry (443)
Continuously "triangulating" the descriptions and interpretations
The case is a system (444)
Case study is both process and product (444)

Five requirements of case study (444)

Issue choice
Triangulation
Experiential knowledge
Contexts
Activities

Types of case study (445)

Intrinsic

Concerned primarly with the individual, particular case

Instrumental

Single case provides generalizable insight to a larger population or phenomenon

Multiple or Collective

Comparative study of multiple cases in tandem

Other uses of case study (447)

In history: a movement, era, episode
In teaching: prove a point, demonstrate a condition, bound a category
In management: b-school case studies, pedagogical tools
Biography
Documentary (television)
Law: the very practice of law is case study

Seeking the particular

Portrayal of the uncommon features of the chosen case
- Occasionally source of tension within the field, re: value of details (448)

Issues

Issues are used to organize the research...

Thematic
Complex, situated, problematic relationships
Tension between the details of a particular case and their generalizability (448)

Foreshadowed problems

Starting with a topical concern
Selection of key issues
Guiding the observation and interpretation processes

To begin, researchers should ask: (448)

"Which issues help reveal merits and shortcomings?"
"Which issues facilitate the planning and activities of inquiry?"
Must consider what is available and possible:
- "What can be learned here ... ?"

Contexts

Case is a complex entity embedded in...

Milieu
History
Culture
Space, geography
Architecture

Contexts can make relationships understandable. (449)

Rather than causality
Perceive "multiply sequenced, multiply contextual, coincidental" relationships

The Study

"Brainwork"

Observational
Reflective
Pondering
Localized
Contextual
Multiple

Instrumental work

Seeks generalization
Connecting case observation to existing theory, emerging worldview

Intrinsic work

Seeks "thick description"
Understanding of the world from within it

Case selection

Which cases are available?
Are the chosen cases representative?
Do you utilize formal sampling techniques?
Do you instead employ "purposive" samples?
- Seeking variety, opportunity, access?
In every research, we seek the greatest opportunity to learn (451)
- "More important that balance and variety"

Interactivity

In a quantitative study, seek interactivity among

Main effects
Setting, context
Programmatic treatment

In a qualitative study, seek interactivity

In the form of descriptions
Dependent on social, cultural, contextual factors

Data gathering

Documentation of the usual, ordinary

Interview
Artifacts

Planning is essential

Clear stages
- Planning
- Gaining access
- Gathering data
- Analysis
- Write up

Teams

Required for large research
Collaboration between junior, senior scholars
Coding to facilitate data transfer

Triangulation

Tolerance for ambiguity

Yet commitment to clarity, validity (453)

Strategiees for reducing likelihood of misinterpretation

Redundant data gathering (454)
Multiple observers
Verifying repeatability of interpretation
- Nothing is perfectly repeatable
Account for multiple interpretations
Help to "identify different realities"

Learning from a particular case

Didactic teaching

Researcher shares what she's already learned

Discovery learning

Providing materials, artifacts from the research
Enabling reader to make his or her own interpretation
Especially appropriate when the reader may know more than the researcher

Experiential knowledge

Qualitative understanding drawn from case study
Experience of both the researchers AND the actors, stakeholders in the case
Vicarious experience enables readers to empathize with actors via researcher narrative
Naturalistic generalization ethnographic materials parallel "actual experience" (454)

Empirical data

Researcher relies on reports, accounts of events they do not personally experience
Rigorous analytic and triangulation practices help separate experiential knowledge from "opinion and preference" (455)

Embraceable cases

Individual researcher given enough time to grown experientially acquainted (455)
Cases beyond "personal embrace" may become too abstract
- Relying on instruments and second-hand accounts

Knowledge transfer

Researchers approach a case with some prior conceptual structures (455)

Advanced organizers
Schemata
Unfolding of realization

Researchers' personal structures will be attached to their observations and interpretations

Most experience is "ill-structured", not "neat"
These will be passed along in reporting and teaching
Readers have "cognitive flexibility" to assess and assemble fragments of new information
Likewise, students, readers, and learners will contribute further schematic material
Researcher/writer's responsibility is to "safeguard" this process
- Provide grounds for validating both observation and generalization (446)

Storytelling

Researcher may "draw out" stories from a case

Not all cases can simply "tell [their] own stories" (456)
Researcher must select respectfully and responsibly from numerous available stories
- The "whole story" exceeds anyone's ability to capture, comprehend, or (re)tell

van Maanen's 7 choices of presentation (1988)

Realistic
Impressionistic
Confessional
Critical
Formal
Literary
Jointly told

Criteria for selection

Funding source demands, expectations
Anticipated audience, readership
Rhetorical convention
Researcher's "career pattern" (457)
Prospect of publication

Planning the presentation

Using above critera
Enables some guidance for data collection
- What is needed? What is to be emphasized?

Comparison

Researcher may scaffold, enable comparison to greater/lesser degrees (457)
- Highlighting areas rich for comparison, entry points
Stake is hesitant about formal comparison
- "obscurs any case knowledge that fails to facilitate comparison" (457)
- Comparative description is the opposite of Geertz "thick description"
- Comparative study emphasizes, focuses on the comparison instead of the case

Ethics

Matters of public interest but
- No necessary public right to know
- No institution may grant license to invade the privacy of others
People in a case study risk public exposure, embarrassment
An unwritten "contract" (trust) exists between researcher and researched
Share drafts of written materials to give people a sense of how they are portrayed
Great caution [...] to minimize risks to participants

Summary

Major conceptual responsibilities of the case researcher (459-60)

Bounding the case, conceptualizing the object of study
Selecting phenomena, issues, themes, research patterns
Seeking patterns of data to develop issues
Triangulating key observations and bases for interpretation
Selecting alternative interpretations to pursue
Developing assertions or generalizations about the case

Major stylistic options

How much is the report going to be a story?
How much comparison?
How much to formalize generalization v. leaving it up to the reader?
How much description of the researcher (autobiographical, narrative) to include?
Whether to and how to preserve anonymity?

Usefulness of case study

In contrast with other scientific methodology

Difficult to generalize findings
- Fascinating case may be a poor representation of a population

Case study valuable for refining theory

Suggests complexity
Establishing limits (to generalizability)

Case study and public policy

Reflecting human experience

"The purpose of the case study is not to represent the world but to represent the case." (460)