Today I had
my last seminar in this course and it was with Leif. We started off with
discussing the theme and the papers we have read in smaller groups and then we
moved on into a group discussion. Mainly we talked about case studies during
the seminar. I think most of us know that a qualitative method is and therefore
it seemed natural to talk about something that many of us know less about. I
learned a lot during this seminar. To be honest I didn’t know much about case
studies before so this seminar lead to a better understating of that.
A case
study is about understanding what happened in a specific situation. Leif
brought up an example with a police investigating a murder. Then the police
force conducts a case study to understand the situation, so the case is not
created in your study; it’s already there. Then the police force use different
methods to solve the case. So a case study combines different methods and these are chosen based on the case, not the other way around.
When doing
a case study and combining different methods you do a sort of triangulation of
the problem. You get different perspectives on the case from the different
methods you use. Therefor you sort of illustrate the problem from different
angles. But this is also the hard part of doing a case study because you have
to have some sort of pre-knowledge about how you can combine methods.
Another thing we talked about on the seminar was that is could be hard to know if a paper has used a case study as a method or not. The discussions in a paper is often more about the result of the study, the specific problem, how the researchers where thinking conducting it. This leads to that it is for the reader very hard to understand that it’s actually a case study they have done. The article we read about case studies (Eisenhardt) is very describing and goes very deep into what a case study is. Many factors that she talks about are often not included in papers and therefore making it hard to decide if it's a case study or not.
Hey Sofia!
SvaraRaderaI also found this seminar really interesting and I too, did not know so much about case studies earlier. At our seminar we discussed what the difference was between a regular qualitative/quantitative study and a case study. Because at first, I thought these two were almost the same thing! Leif brought up an example about investigating ADHD, and for 23-30 years ago, you did not know what ADHD was. But today you know the symptom and you can examine more thoroughly several variables based on that already existing knowledge. When applying case study to a real problem, it becomes more clear of what a case study is. Good reflection and good luck with further studies! /Hannah
Hi Hannah,
RaderaGreat example with ADHD. I think I still have a hard time grasping the difference though. But it makes sense when applying case study to a real problem, you get a much clearer answer on that it really is.
Thanks for your comment!
Sofia
Hi Sofia
SvaraRaderaYou said that we already know much about qualitative study and therefore it was good that we mostly focus on case studies, but did you think the same way about quantitative methods (?), that we already knew things about it. I did at least, and still I learned much about quantitative methods from the seminar with Olle. Don’t you think it would be the same with qualitative methods as well if we would have payed a lot more attention to it?
Its interesting when you are saying that a case is not created, it’s already there. The difficulty with it, is to understand what’s a case and not. What made-up case are and what existing cases are is in a way an interpretation of a phenomena made by man. I mean most of the cases that exist is once made up and defined as a case. One question that occurs is what is it that creates a case?
I agree that it is hard to determine whether or not a research article has used case study as a method since its a notion of nuance.
Great reflection BTW!
Hi Erik,
RaderaHaha, yes to clarify, I just know less about case studies than qualitative studies. Of course I have a lot to learn about qualitative studies but from what came up on the seminar, that wasn't anything new to me.
I think you question on what creates a case is both very interesting and very difficult to answer. I don't think I have a answer to it. Maybe that when you feel the need to explain why something happens is when a case study is created?
Thanks for you comment!
Sofia
Hi,
SvaraRaderaI like your reflection! I think that the police investigation was a good example from Leif of what a case study could be, and it probably made the definition of what a case study is a bit more clear for many of us who attended that seminar. I also like that Leif explained that companies can conduct case studies in order to understand problems in their business, and to reach solutions, since that is exactly what we did in the Media Management course on Handelhögskolan. I think that "real life examples" like these; the police investigation, Hannah's ADHD example in the comment above, and companies' case studies, all together make the definition of a case study much more clear and easy to grasp.
Hi Sofia,
SvaraRaderaGood reflections and thoughts as usual! I really like your quote, which says; the case is not created in your study; it’s already there. That police example together with that sentence will make me never forget what a case study is. ;)
I think the Eisenhardt article was a little bit hard to use because of the same reason that you mention; the factors that she talks about are not even included in all papers and articles and that makes it a little bit hard to apply on all studies.