CONCEPTS TO BE INCLUDED Case studies Diagnostic research Problem analysis Temporal within case variation Spatial within case variation

CASE STUDIES

AIM Introducing three types of questions answered in ‘case studies’ Clarifying aspects of doing case studies Relating case study research to other types of research

DEFINITION Research aimed at answering a research question about a single unit of analysis or about a single setting Best seen as a characteristic of the research question NOT a type of research design NOT a data collection method

EXAMPLE I: problem analysis What is wrong in this company? Or with this individual? And why? Problem analysis Descriptive (What is or could be the problem?) Exploratory (Why is something wrong?) (aka diagnostic, causal)

EXAMPLE II: (ex post) outcome evaluations Did the intervention solve the problem of the patient? Did the cure help? Evaluation research Descriptive research Causal research

EXAMPLE III: causal research Is the availability of natural resources (gas, oil) affecting the level of democracy in Russia? Causal research Availability of natural resources Level of democracy - negative

TYPES OF QUESTIONS, TYPES OF CASE STUDIES (Setting case studies: Behavior of young adults: the case of The Netherlands) Exploratory case studies: Which factors may have caused this person to become an alcoholic? Why problems in this organization? Diagnostic case studies (interpretive, applied research): Why did the spaceship Challenger explode in mid-air? Testing causal hypotheses case studies: What is the effect of the amount of natural resources on the level of democracy in Russia? / Did cure help patient? Especially type 2 (1) and 3 (2) are not always easy to distinguish, generally, type 1 is done without a clear theory and type 2 is strongly based on an existing theory, including general ideas about causes and effects.

1. EXPLORATORY CASE STUDIES Which factors may have caused this person to become an alcoholic? Asking individuals (reasons) Studying the background of individuals Coming up with specific hypotheses, sometimes checking whether the indicated causes were indeed present Do NOT mentioning using theories, because that would be diagnostic!

2. DIAGNOSTIC CASE STUDIES a.k.a. “Modus operandi method”: Spaceship Challenger January 1986! Check out video’s on the internet … Interesting movie called “The Challenger Disaster” in which the role of Richard Feynman is put central …

DIAGNOSTIC CASE STUDIES Y is the case Challenger exploded X is a cause of Y O-ring qualityleakageexplosion X is the case Low temp + O-ring not tested for low temp  low O-ring quality  X may have caused Y (O-ring maybe caused explosion) Using causal hypotheses to offer an explanation

DIAGNOSTIC CASE STUDIES (second example) Why did the dinosaurs become extinct? 65 million years ago

DIAGNOSTIC CASE STUDIES Y is the case dinosaurs were extinct X is a cause of Y meteorite  temperature decline  no food  extinction X is the case indications that a meteorite collided with earth around that time X may have caused Y  meteorite may have caused extinction Research here is mainly about ‘finding out whether X is true’ (and ruling out other factors)

3. HYPOTHESIS TESTING IN CASE STUDIES In diagnostic research, the hypotheses used are uncontested Research is mainly about whether X is present What is the effect of the amount of natural resources (X) on the level of democracy (Y) in Russia? X and Y are observed, the general causal relationship is contested

HYPOTHESIS TESTING IN CASE STUDIES Russia is one Unit of Analysis, but can we maybe find different instances or units of observation WITHIN Russia? Two possibilities: Temporal variation within a case Spatial variation within a case

TEMPORAL VARIATION Level of anti-democratic rhetoric of the president High Jan 2009 Aug 2008 Jan 2010 June 2008 June 2009 Dec 2009 Jan 2008 Low Low Price of oil High Cross sectional research design

SPATIAL VARIATION Does Sun Protection Factor 30 on MY body help to block the sun better than SPF 15? SPF Burns -

SPATIAL VARIATION Randomly assign parts of my two legs to either SPF15 or SPF30 (X) Measure sun burn (Y) on all parts Relate sun burn to SPF15 or SPF30 = Experiment with a treatment and a control group

THIS MICROLECTURE Three types of research questions about ‘cases’: Exploratory, sometimes hypothesis generating Diagnostic, theory based Hypothesis testing, using within case analysis: Temporal variation Spatial variation Case study is neither research design nor datacollection method

IMAGES USED No reference needed