Chapter 5 Analysis and Interpretation
Two strategic ways that researchers reach new meanings about cases are through direct interpretation of the individual instance and through aggregation of instances until something can be said about them as a class.
With intrinsic case studies, our primary task is to come to understand the case. Usually, we will try to spend most of our time in direct interpretation.
With instrumental case studies, where the case serves to help us understand phenomena or relationships within it, the need for categorical data and measurements is greater. We will forego attention to the complexity of the case to concentrate o relationships identified in our research question. The nature of the study, the focus of the research questions, the curiosities of the researcher pretty well determine what analytic strategies should be followed: categorical aggregation or direction interpretation.
Naturalistic Generalizations-are conclusions arrived at through personal engagement in life’s affairs or by vicarious experience so well constructed that the person feels as if it happened to themselves.
Naturalistic Generalization is important more because of its embeddedness in the experience of the reader, whether verbalized or not.
Chapter 6-Case Researcher Roles
The Case Study Researcher as Teacher
The intention of research is to inform, to sophisticate, to assist the increase of competence and maturity, to socialize, and to liberate. These are also the responsbilities of the teacher.
The Case Study Researcher as Advocate
The Case Study Researcher as Evaluator
The Case Study Researcher as Biographer
The Case Study Researcher as Interpreter
Constructivism
Of all the roles, the role of interpreter, and gatherer of interpretations is central. Most contemporary qualitative researchers nourish the belief that knowledge is constructed rather than discovered.
We may conceive of three realities. One is an external reality capable of stimulating us in simple ways but of which we known nothing other than our interpretations of those stimuli. The second is a reality formed of those interpretations of simple stimulation, an experiential reality representing external reality so persuasively that we seldom realize our inability to verify it. The third is a universe of integrated interpretations, our rational reality. The second and third, of course, blend into each other.
Relativity
Because they emphasize experiential and personal determination of knowledge, most qualitative researchers are relativists.
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