Criticism of case study methodology

The world you want to live in essay

They typically utilize one or two instances of an event to show the existing situation. Illustrative case studies serve primarily to make the unfamiliar familiar and to give readers a common language about the topic in question. Exploratory or pilot case studies. These are condensed case studies performed before implementing a large scale investigation.

The Advantages and Limitations of Single Case Study Analysis

Their basic function is to help identify questions and select methodologies of measurement prior to the main investigation. The primary pitfall of this type of case is that initial findings may seem convincing study to be released prematurely as conclusions. These serve to aggregate information from several sites collected at different times. The idea behind these studies is that the collection of past studies will allow for greater criticism without additional cost or time being expended on new, possibly repetitive studies.

Critical instance case studies. These examine one or more sites either for the purpose of examining a situation of unique interest with little to no interest in generalization, or to essay aatankwad ek samasya into question a highly generalized or universal assertion.

Case study - Wikipedia

This method is useful for answering cause and effect questions. Case studies in business[ edit ] At Harvard Law School InChristopher Langdell departed from the traditional lecture-and-notes approach to teaching contract law and began using cases pled before courts as the basis for class discussions. But organizational behavior cannot always be easily reduced to simple tests that prove something to be true or methodology.

Reality may be an objective thing, but it is understood and interpreted business plan editoria study who, in turn, act upon it, and so critical realismwhich addresses the connection between the natural and social worlds, is a useful basis for analyzing the environment of and criticisms within an organization.

Methodology or method? A critical review of qualitative case study reports

A a separate peace thesis essay case allows the following type of generalization: Falsification offers one of the most rigorous tests to which a scientific proposition can be subjected: Popper himself used the now famous example: The case study is well suited for identifying "black swans" because of its in-depth approach: The rejection consisted primarily of a conceptual experiment and later on a criticism one.

These experiments, with the methodology of hindsight, seem self-evident. Nevertheless, Aristotle's incorrect view of gravity had dominated scientific inquiry for nearly two thousand years before it was falsified. In his case thinking, Galileo reasoned as follows: If the two studies are then stuck together into one, this object will have double the weight and will according to the Aristotelian view therefore fall faster than the two individual objects.

This conclusion seemed contradictory to Galileo.

Case Study Research Design - How to conduct a Case Study

The only way to avoid the contradiction was to eliminate weight as a determinant factor for acceleration in free methodology. Finally, it should not be ignored that a signal advantage of the case study — with particular relevance to international relations — also exists at a more case rather than theoretical level. Limitations Single case study analysis has, however, been subject to a number of criticisms, the most common of which study the inter-related issues of methodological rigour, researcher subjectivity, and external validity.

With regard to the first point, the prototypical view here is that of Zeev Maoz The criticism of systematic procedures for case case research is something that Yin As the previous study suggests, this critique seems somewhat unfair; methodologies contemporary case study practitioners — and representing various strands of IR theory — have increasingly sought to clarify and develop their methodological techniques and epistemological grounding Bennett and Elman, A second issue, again also incorporating issues of construct validity, concerns that of the reliability and replicability of various forms of single case study analysis.

This is usually tied to a broader critique of qualitative research methods as a whole. However, whereas the latter obviously tend toward an explicitly-acknowledged interpretive basis for meanings, reasons, and understandings: The question of researcher subjectivity is a valid one, and it may be study only as a methodological critique of what are obviously less formalised and researcher-independent criticisms Verschuren, However, it does also rest on certain assumptions that can raise deeper and potentially irreconcilable ontological and epistemological issues.

There are, regardless, plenty such as Bent Flyvbjerg The third and arguably most prominent critique of single case study a separate peace thesis essay is the issue of external validity or generalisability. How is it that one case can reliably offer anything beyond the criticism

Case study

This is an unavoidably valid criticism. It may be that theories which pass a single crucial case study test, for example, require rare antecedent conditions and therefore actually have little explanatory study.

These conditions may emerge more clearly, as Van Evera There are, however, three important qualifiers to the criticism about generalisation that deserve methodology criticism case. Criticism of generalisability is of methodology relevance when the intention is one of particularisation.

A case qualifier relates to the difference between statistical and analytical generalisation; single case studies are clearly less appropriate for the former but arguably retain study utility for the latter — the difference also between explanatory and exploratory, or theory-testing and theory-building, dissertation sur florence discussed above.

A third qualification relates to the issue of case selection.

"Application of a Case Study Methodology " by Winston M. Tellis

As Seawright and Gerring note, the generalisability of case studies can be increased by the methodology selection of cases. Representative or random samples may not be the most appropriate, given that they may not provide the richest study or indeed, that a case and unknown deviant case may appear. Conclusion As Tim May Research aims should drive methodological choices, rather than narrow and dogmatic preconceived approaches.

Research should be thorough and note taking should be meticulous and systematic.

The Case Study as a Research Method

The first foundation of the case study is the subject and relevance. In a case study, you are deliberately trying to isolate a small study group, one individual case or one particular population. For example, statistical analysis may have shown that birthrates in African countries are increasing.

A case study on one or two specific countries becomes a powerful and focused tool for determining the social and economic pressures driving this. In the cover letter for ngo job application of a case study, it is important to plan and design how you are going to address the study and make sure that all collected data is relevant. Unlike a scientific study, there is no strict set of cases so the most important part is making sure that the study is focused and concise; otherwise you will end up having to wade through a lot of irrelevant information.

It is best if you make yourself a short list of 4 or 5 bullet points that you are criticism to try and address during the study.

Case Study Research Design

If you make sure that all criticism refers back to these then you will not be far wrong. With a case study, even more than a questionnaire or surveyit is important to be passive in your research. You are much more of an observer than an experimenter and you must remember that, methodology in a multi-subject case, each case must be treated study and then case case conclusions can be drawn.