Single or Multiple Case Study Design

Yin leans on the quantitative verbiage a good deal and even divorces case study from an assumed qualitative linkage. Yin believes a case study can be a quantitative or mixed methods design and is not strictly qualitative.

Although a good bit of Yin's writing is over my head or would be more useful if discussed in a group, I'm learning a good bit from Yin.

What Are the Potential Single-Case Designs?

Rationale for single-case designs

Critical case in testing a well-formulated theory

Extreme case or unique case

Representative or typical case

Revelatory case

Longititudinal case

Potential Shortcomings:

Case may later turn out not to be the case it was thought to be

Holistic versus embedded case study

o More than one unit of analysis occurs when, within a single case, attention is also given to a subunit or subunits

o A typical problem with the holistic design is that the entire case study may be

o conducted at an unduly abstract level, lacking sufficiently clear measures of data

o A further problem with the holistic design is that the entire nature of the case study may shift, unbeknownst to the researchers, during the course of the study.

o An embedded design can serve as an important device for focusing a case study inquiry

An embedded designs, however, also has its pitfalls. A major one occurs when the case study focuses only on the subunit level and fails to return to the larger unit of analysis

What Are the Potential Multiple-Case Designs?

The evidence from multiple cases is often considered more compelling, and the overall study is therefore regarded as being more robust.

Rationale for multiple-case designs-The simplest multiple-case design would be the selection of two or more cases that are believed to be literal replications, such as a set of cases with exemplary outcomes in relation to some evaluations questions, such as “how and why a particular intervention has been implemented smoothly”

Multiple-Case Studies: Holistic or embedded

The difference between these two variants depends upon the type of phenomenon being studied and your research questions In an embedded design, a study even may call for the conduct of a survey at each case study site.

Criteria for Judging the quality of research designs

Criteria for Judging the quality of research designs

Four tests have been commonly used to establish the quality of any empirical social research:

Construct validity: identifying correct operational measures for the concepts being studied;

Internal validity: (for explanatory or causal studies only and not for descriptive or exploratory studies): seeking to establish a causal relationship, whereby certain conditions are believed to lead to other conditions, as distinguished from spurious relationships;

External validity: defining the domain to which a study’s findings can be generalized;

Reliability: demonstrating that the operations of a study—such as the data collection procedures—can be repeated, with the same results

Construct validity-

Three tactics are available to increase construct validity when doing case studies.

The first is the use of multiple sources of evidence in a manner encouraging

convergent lines of inquiry, and this tactic is relavant during data collection.

The second tactic is to establish a chain of evidence, also relevant during data collection.

The third tactic is to have the draft case study report reviewed by key informants.

Internal validity-

Internal validity is mainly a concern for explanatory case studies, when an

investigation is trying to explain how and why event x led to event y.

Tactics: pattern matching, explanation building, addressing rival explainations, and

using logic models.

External Validity-

Case studies (as with experiments) rely on analytic generalization. In analytical generalization, investigator is striving to generalize a particular set of results to some broader theory.

Reliability-

The objective is to be sure that, if a later investigator followed the same procedures as described by an earlier investigator and conducted the same case study all over again.

Document the procedures followed in the earlier case.

The use of a case study protocol to deal with the documentation problem in detail

and the development of a case study database

Case Study Research, Design and Methods (4th edition)

Notes from Case Study Research Design and Methods

Chapter 1

The distinctive need for case studies arises out of the desire to understand complex social phenomena.

“How” and “why” questions are explanatory and likely lead to the use of case studies, histories, and experiments as the preferred research methods. This is because such questions deal with operational links needing to be traced over time, rather than mere frequencies or incidence.

Case studies, like experiments, are generalizable to theoretical propositions and not to populations or universes.

A case study is an empirical inquiry that

o Investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth and with its real-life context, especially when

o The boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident

The case study inquiry

o Copes with the technically distinctive situation in which there will be many more variables of interest than data points, and as one results

o Relies on multiple sources of evidence, with data needing to converge in a

triangulating fashion, and as another result

o Benefits from the prior development of theoretical propositions to guide data collection and analysis

Chapter 2-Designing Case Studies

Definition of Research Designs

In the most elementary sense, the design is the logical sequence that connects the empirical data to a study’s initial research questions and ultimately to its conclusions

Another way of thinking about a research design is a “blueprint” for your research, dealing with at least four problems: what questions to study, what data are relevant, what data to collect, and how to analyze the results.

Components of Research Design:

1. a study’s questions

2. its propositions, if any

3. its unit(s) of analysis

4. the logic linking the data to the propositions

5. the criteria for interpreting the findings

The Role of Theory in Design Work-For case studies, theory development as part of the design phase is essential, whether the ensuing case study’s purpose is to develop or to test theory.

Analytic generalization, in which a previously developed theory is used as a template with which to compare the empirical results of the case study.

So Spoiled, So Quickly

Yesterday I began reading Book #2, Unequal Childhoods. It's very different from Book #1. I find that I got spoiled very quickly with the volatile world of the underground economy in Book #1. Book #2 while a worthy and important work hasn't utilized story on the same level as did Book #1. Because of this, there is a significant more editoralizing-less use of the words of the participants. The Book (#2) thus far reads much like a research article and less like a story. How quickly I grew to fondly admire the ability to use the words of the participant! How quickly I learned to feel the essence of the story through the words of the participants rather than the leading in portion and leading out portion! Now I'm finding the researcher's words boring! I'm ruined!

I'm also reading Case Study Research, Design & Methods by Yin. Similar to the more recently methodology- grounded theory-there seems to be different perspectives on case study methods as well. Yin states that case study can use qualitative or quantitative approaches! Now that's an interesting take and I'd probably call that mixed method but I'm still learning and reading.

Today was a stay-at-home and work on stuff day! Ray spent the entire day working on the kitchen, finishing adding the trim work and giving a second coat of paint to the waincoating. The kitchen looks amazing. It is SO NICE to finally have it coming together after being in a state of disarray for so long! The top half of each wall is a nice muted green (moss?) that is sponged on. The bottom is new wainscoating painted a khaki color. The molding is a lighter cream. Now ALL we have to do is the backsplash, the special tile thingy we're doing along one wall at the ceiling, the counter-top and eventually the floor.

Ali seems to be feeling better-she is being completely naughty and runs when she goes outside. Even the pinched nerve can't keep such a WILD DOG down!

Ali Wallace-Pinched Neck Nerve :(

Ali-my sweet chocolate lab of 8 years was so excited to see me on Saturday she jumped on the bed to hang out when I was reading. Later she jumped down and it turns out she’s pinched a nerve in her neck L

We went to the vet today and she got a shot and some pills to make her better. She’s limping and it hurts to hold her head up. She was great at the vet, very chill. The vet said that Ali is to have 2 weeks of strict rest-no outside, no squirrel chasing, no jumping or other high level activity. She is taking that pretty well! Considering the only tempting thing is possible squirrel chasing, she is adjusting well-she asked me to give her an ear massage and feed her kibbles.

Instead I’m reading her exceprts from “Selling Crack in El Barrio!” HA!