In the last seminar with Leif Dahlberg we discussed qualitative studies and case studies, but the focus was mainly on case studies. A case study is a study to get a deeper understanding about a specific case and not a subject. It’s a study in a specific location and time, and it often contains both quantitative and qualitative methods.
I’ve learned that you don’t really need to know what you’re looking for in the beginning of the case study-process and you don’t even need to define a problem. Many times the researchers only have an idea before they, often in teams, starts to study different cases. A case study should have open-ended questions and not any questions where one can simple answer yes or no. Leif also told us that a case study and a field study are very similar to each other. One difference between the two studies is that a field study is often done by one person and a case study is often done in teams.
In the seminar we also talked in smaller groups about the course as a whole. My group discussed whether this course should be placed before or after doing our bachelor thesis. We thought that the knowledge we’ve gained about different methods during this course could have been useful before doing the bachelor thesis. But on the other hand, taking this course after the bachelor thesis made it easier to relate to the different methods that we’ve discussed. Overall I think that this is a useful course since it teaches about many types of methods which will be applicable when doing my master thesis.
Hi Johanna
SvaraRaderaI think its interesting that you are saying that you don't need to know what you are looking for in the beginning of a case study. But you also says that one usually has an idea about what you are searching for. I think that mobility is very interesting and a huge benefit of a case studies.
Its good that you can see both positive aspects and negative aspects of having this course after the bachelor thesis. I think its good to have it between the bachelor and the master thesis since, as you said, the things that we are reading about in this course makes more sense after the bachelor thesis and you will detect your mistakes that you have made and adjust them before the master thesis
By the way, good reflection!
Hey Johanna!
SvaraRaderaGood reflection you have written there! One thing that came to my mind while reading your reflection was that you said case-study and field-study are similar to each other. As I understood it at the seminar, a field-study is a method you can use in e.g a case-study.
I agree with you about the discussion of when they should place the course. In one hand, as you said, I think the course should be placed before the bachelor thesis because you still possess some knowledge about the subject from example the basic course in HCI and if you read it before the bachelor thesis you will have more knowledge about how to design a research than you did before. On the other hand, I think this course should not be given to the students that are in the 4th grade because then it is like a bit gap until your master thesis in 5th grade. In that case, I think this course should be placed the semester before your master thesis. Hehe just my reflections upon it!
/Hannah
Hi,
SvaraRaderaIn the beginning of this theme I also feel not sure about case study research. Because, I seldom read a paper based on this research, so I do not have much experience about the research using case study method. Furthermore, it also need much time to search the paper using this method when preparing blog for the first theme.
I think there is one more thing that usually use in case study research. When using case study method, we usually do it using inductive method to create a theory. So, the researcher using a bottom up approach in order to solve the problem.
Also, I agree with you that when conducting case study research, then we need to limit the number of the cases. From the Eisenhardt article and the seminar I learned that when conduct case study research, we must limit the number of cases between 4 to 10. It is possible to have a smaller number of cases, but it will only create a weak theory which only focus to certain condition. But if we have a lot of cases, it can provide a huge amount of data that can be overwhelming the analysis and may make the research not focus to the initial problem.
I think you already grasped what the case study research is, good job there.
Interesting reflections surrounding the case study vs. field studies. I haven’t thought of the differences between these studies. I don’t think we talked about the differences in my group either. You say that a field study is made by one person and a case study by a team, is it as a researcher or as a participator?
SvaraRadera