Case Studies and Content Analysis Flashcards
1
Q
What is a Case Study?
A
- to study a ‘case’ to provide a detailed and in-depth analysis of an unusual individual or event
- tends to be qualitative data, may construct a case history of individual concerned: interviews, observations, questionnaires etc
- tend to be longitudinal
2
Q
What is one Strength and one Limitation of Case Studies?
A
- Offer rich detailed info and can give valuable insight e.g into HM told us about processing memory, may generate hypothesises for future studies
- generalisation is almost impossible because of generalisability, can be biased from investigator and from family via social desirability bias
3
Q
What is content analysis?
A
- type of observational research where people are studied indirectly via the communications produced such as conversation or written forms or media e.g films
- aim is to summarise/describe communication in a systematic way so conclusions can be drawn
4
Q
Coding and Quantitative data?
A
- Coding is the initial state of content analysis, some data sets to be analysed may be extremely large and so must be catagorised into meaningful units e.g counting number of times a certain word is used
5
Q
What is Thematic analysis and Qualitative Data?
A
- Thematic analysis is a type of content analysis where the data is qualitative - involves identification of themes (ideas that reoccurs) - more descriptive than coding
- once researcher is satisfied themes cover most aspects of the data, they may collect another set of data to test validity of themes
- researcher then writes up final report, typically using direct quotes from data for each theme
6
Q
What is one Strength and one Limitation of Content Analysis?
A
Strength: can circumnavigate ethical issues associated with regular research as a lot of material already exists in the public sphere also external validity
- Study is indirect, analysed outside the context within which it occurred, research may attribute biased opinions
