Case Studies Segments 32,33,34

Case Study Process - Overview

CASE STUDY PROCESS - PLAN

2 PART DEFINITION OF CASE STUDIES 1) A case study is an empirical inquiry that:  Investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth and within the real-life context, especially when  The boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident. 2) The case study inquiry:  Copes with the technically distinctive situation in which there will be many more variables of interest than data points, and as one result  Relies on multiple sources of evidence, with data needing to converge in a triangulating fashion, and as another result  Benefits from the prior development of theoretical propositions to guide data collection and analysis

Case study process - design

5 components of case study design For case studies, five components of a research design are especially important: 1.A study’s questions 2.A study’s propositions 3.A study’s units of analysis 4.The logic linking the data to the propositions 5.The criteria for interpreting the findings

Illustration of Case Study Topics

How to generalize from case studies

Basic types of designs for case studies

Case study design -prepare

Example TOC of case study protocol – innovative law enforcement practices

Case Study Protocol – question levels

Design v. Data Collection: different units of analysis

Case study Design - Collect

Six sources of evidence

Convergence / non-convergence of multiple sources of evidence

Maintaining a chain of evidence

Case Study Design -Analyze

4 analysis strategies 1. Relying on theoretical propositions (does your data fit the theory you started with?) 2. Developing a case description (used only when the case study was originally descriptively planned) 3. Use both qualitative and quantitative data (if the data is analyzed both ways) 4. Examine rival expectations

5 analytical techniques 1. Pattern matching – compare empirically based patterns with predicted ones 2. Explanation building – create a causal link from the ‘what’ to the ‘why’ 3. Time-series analysis – look a the same thing(s) again & again over time 4. Logic models – stipulate a chain of events over an extended period of time 5. Cross-case synthesis – merge two cases together to create a stronger conclusion

Case Study Design - Share