Case Studies

Question 1

What is a case study?

Answer 1

An in-depth study of one person or small group of people

Often involves combination of many research methods e.g. a lab study, observations, questionnaires etc…

Question 2

Advantages of case studies

Answer 2

-Some things can only be researched using a case study e.g. how dementia impacts someones life

-Allows a researcher to gain insight and deeper understanding on a topic which can lead to medical developments etc…

Question 3

Disadvantages of case studies

Answer 3

-Cannot be replicated so unable to check for reliability within a study

-Consent issues e.g. Clive Wearing as he had short term memory issues so may not understand the study

-Can’t generalise findings beyond that specific case study

-Other ethical issues e.g. confidentiality, privacy

Question 4

Validity within case studies

Answer 4

-Validity in a case study depends upon methods used as part of the study e.g. observations, interviews..

-Triangulation can be used to assess validity of case studies, which is when 3 research methods are used, and then results are compared to see if they all agree with eachother

Question 5

Reliability within case studies

Answer 5

-Reliability is a major issue in case studies as lots of subjective interpretation is required, which introduces researcher bias

-This can be overcome by using inter-rater reliability with multiple researchers comparing results to see if they’re similar