Lecture 3 Flashcards
Research design problem
Research results must often be produced within strict time constraints.
The amount of money available for doing the research is also limited
The student’s research competence and experiments (usually) have their limitations.
Design errors occur due through neglect of the design problem.
Irrelevant design choices
- Examining a badly understood problem with a very structured design
- Examining structures, well-understood problems by ‘unstructured’ methods.
Research design
A plan for an entire qualitative research project
This plan should be written in a research proposal
The main purpose is to provide a road map for the whole research and to convince your supervisor that your project is viable.
Action research
Observations, interviews, actions during a change-process
Archival Research
Documents, reports, magazines and webpages
Ethnography approach
Observations of a culture-sharing group, shared pattern of beliefs. behavior, meanings
Narrative methods
Stories, discourse, conversation and arguments
Grounded theory
Interviews, observations, develop theory about event or process.
Case study
Observations& interviews in-depth understanding of a contextualized phenomenon (individual, group, business, program, project).
Case study
A detailed study of a signel social unit or to describe a research method.
Case studies are often of an explanatory, exploratory or descriptive nature
When to use a case study?
- Follow a theory that specifies a particular set of outcomes in some particualr situation, and a firm which finds itself in that particular situation.
- Study some specific characteristics of a rare or extreme situation in which an organization finds itself.
- Study a situation or an organization which has rarely been studied an dis uniqye in its nature.
Comparative case studies and its purpose
ask or study the same questions in a number of organizations and compare them with each other to draw conclusions.
Purpose:
- to compare the pehonomenon
- to explore different dimensions of our research issues
- to examine different levels of research variables
Exploratory research
To discover how it happened
This research should be used when the aim is to understand how a phenomenon takes place.
To gain an understaning of how organizational dynamics or social processes work
Explanatory research
To explain, or to compare why it happenend.
This research should be used when the aim is to understand why a phenomenon takes place.
Most often the explanatory nature of a case study is combined with its exploratory aim.
Descriptive research
To describe what happenend
This research should be adopted when te aim of the research is to convice someone that a phenomenon is relevant.
Case study revision process
Drift: Learn the area of research, concepts and terminology in the fielfd
Design: The choice of strategy to collect data and the development of tentative explanations of the observations .
Prediction: Case information may be grouped and can proceed with further case construction and analysis.
Disconfirmation: Further testing/analysis of the results sugeested by the prediction stage.
Case study design
- a study’s questions
- its propositions
- unit of analysis
- Selecting the cases
- Data sources, timeline
How to select cases
Decide target population, assess the accessible population and select one or a few cases, objects or firms for the study.
Consider the time and the financial resources.
Single case study
A single case is used when a particular case is critical and we want to use it for testing an established theory.
a single case is an extreme or a unique case.
A case is revelatory so we can observe and study a phenomenon that was previously not accessible
Multiple case study
Every case must serve a particular purpose in the study.
We have to justify the selection of each case.
Case study design is often flexible and can be changed, modified or revised with proper justification.
Multiple case studies typically provide a stronger base for theory building or explanation,
Advantages of case study method
- Rich data
- Clues for those seeking further research ideas
- Can be used to gather descriptive, explanatory data, initiate change, and theory generation.
- Can suggest why events occurred
- lots of data sources-across the spectrum
Criticisms of case method
- Concern over lack of ‘rigor; compared to quantitative methods.
- concern that cases give little opportunity to generalize.
