case studies

Question 1

What is a case study?

Answer 1

A case study provides detailed analysis of an individual, establishment ore real life event. A case study does not refer to how a study was conducted, as a case study can use experimental or non experimental methods to collect data. Case study’s can range from interviews to a memory test under controlled conditions.

case study’s are often used where there is a rare behavior being investigated which does not occur enough to warrant a larger study. A case study allows for data to be collected and analysed on something we may not know much about and can be used as starting points for more in depth research in the future.

Question 2

What are 4 examples of a case study?

Answer 2

HM

Phineas Gage

Little Hans

Little Albert

Question 3

Strengths of case studies

Answer 3

• ) They allow us to study detailed information about situations, these unique insights might be missed in situations in which there is only the manipulation of one variable to see its effect on another.
• ) Case study’s can be used in situations in which it is unethical to study experimentally, ie you can study the effects of a failure to form attachments which you could not ethically study unless it occurred naturally.

Question 4

Weaknesses of case studies

Answer 4

• ) By only studying one individual or an isolated event it is hard to generalise any findings to the wider populations as the results are often unique. This also means that case study’s have issues with external validity as you can not say if the behavior seen in the case study will be repeated outside of it which also means it lacks population validity.
• ) The researcher also may not be subjective, for example in the little Hans case study Freud created a whole theory around what he observed while having no other scientific or experimental evidence to support him. This means we cant be sure he objectively reported his findings. This means that subjectivity can interfere with the validity of case study’s findings.