For this week seminar, i started off the class with a very less knowledge about case study. it's the term that i see often and sometimes use it too but i actually dont' really know what exactly it is and how it is different from qualitative or quantitative method.
I did find two research papers that using study case. i thought that case study is just another type of sample which the researcher tend to choose specific sample to study about. for example, you choose one company to study about their working system. but why do u chose call it 'case study' instead of qualitative method ?
However, after seminar. i have a clear clarification that 'study case' is used when the case has insufficient information, a new issue that knowledge about it is still lacking. qualitative method use for the type of research that you have some idea about the research questions. that's also linked to my previous blog that the study about technology consumed by 3-4 years old kid. the researcher did mention that there is very less number of researching doing about this 3-4 years old kid therefore they chose to do a case study by visiting families and observed. therefore in this research has no hypothesis.
For the sample of the research, even though Ilias said that it is the same for both case study and qualitative/quantitative that researcher meant to pick who are they going to study. however i personally feel that the sample of case study are less random than qualitative and quantitative method. i felt that case study's sample sometimes can be very narrow too. while quantitative and qualitative have to get more randomness of their sample because they want to generalise the result. but case study is only looking at one circumstance if there is anything interesting and if it can be study further in the future.
Another research paper from my previous blog is the study about the use of social media and government in 31 cities around the world. they use 31 cities as the study case and present result in a numeric data. Therefore, case study can be both quantitative and qualitative method.
It is like we're going around the circle. with something we don't know, but we feel that there is something interesting about it, we may start off by exploring with case study. then after case study we had some idea about the topic then ones may continue with doing another research with quantitative or qualitative method then create a theory. then after a theory we can use theory to create other theory.
I think case studies are more of a strategic approach, which can use both quantitative and qualitative methods to gain knowledge on the subject, at least as I understand it. Quantitative and qualitative methods could be seen as tools, maybe, it is the context in which you use them that is important. Interesting post otherwise, you clearly bring out your thought and opinions which is great! Cheers!
ReplyDeleteHi!
ReplyDeleteI also had a hard time understanding what made a case study different from a qualitative/quantitative study but I understood that it was a approach to a subject where e.g. no previous theory is found. It is not a qualitative or quantitative study it is as I said an approach that can use these methods to help form hypotheses for future studies. I liked you blogpost and you seem to have put a lot of thought in the matter!
/Maria
Hi!
ReplyDeleteI also had a hard time understanding what made a case study different from a qualitative/quantitative study but I understood that it was a approach to a subject where e.g. no previous theory is found. It is not a qualitative or quantitative study it is as I said an approach that can use these methods to help form hypotheses for future studies. I liked you blogpost and you seem to have put a lot of thought in the matter!
/Maria
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI would like to share an example that Ilias gave to our seminar, because I believe it demonstrates most of your thoughts. He talked about a case study on a new and weird fashion that a lot of young people follow. We cannot make qualitative or quantitative research because this case is completely new and we don’t know what to ask the people, we don’t know the research questions since we don’t know anything about this fashion. So we can make a case study to one of those people, in order to understand what is going on, what all of this is about, what is in people’ s mind and lead them to do this. After that we have an idea of what is going on so we can continue with qualitative or quantitative research in more people. We can draw conclusion about this fashion and have general results. Hope you will find this example interesting and helpful!
Hey!
ReplyDeleteI had a similar learning curve of case study as you did. After the preparation for this theme it was unclear to me what case studies are and when is this method used. It turns out that it is not a method and more a research strategy or a category used to investigate new and very specific topics. I think you really hit the nail in the head with your last paragraph about case studies.
Good work!!
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI experienced the same feelings towards this theme. Case studies was the hardest part to grasp for me as well. As I understood it a case study is not the same as a qualitative nor quantitative study. A case study is a research strategy rather than a research method. But it can use the research method such as qualitative when conducting the study to help gain knowledge about the field investigated or a theory that can lead to understanding if it's worth further investigation. Otherwise great job on writing your last theme reflection! Keep up the good job on the last post this week!
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI had the same feeling about case study research as you as it was absolutely no new term to me, however I was not aware what a case study actually is. In my opinion the seminar really helped to bring light into the dark. However it is a pity that we didn’t had a lecture this time as I think that it would have helped to get even more insights to comprehend the cyclical principle of case studies in depth, which you have also mentioned.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI also had no knowledge of case study before. I think finding paper is the most difficult thing because you didn't know whether the paper contains these method. You should read these papers first and then you may find these paper more often used quantitative method ,not the qualitative method.So you have to find a new paper.
I appreciate that I was so lucky to attend the final seminar with a great group. becuse I learned much knowledge from my groupmates.They give me a new understanding on quantitative method and qualitative method.and also they give me a good explanation on what the case study is and what the case study used for.
I also like your reflection very much.Keep it up!