Research Methods: Case studies and content/thematic analysis

Question 1

A case study is …

Answer 1

a detailed investigation of an individual or group of people

Question 2

Give three more points about the features of a case study

Answer 2

-they take place over a period of time
-involves a variety of methods(observations , interviews etc)
-individuals studied are in some way unique or different

Question 3

Give 3 strengths about case studies

Answer 3

+ allows us to study things that may be unethical or impractical to manipulate/study

+ can collect a large amount of qualitative or quantitative data which gives a detailed insight

+ longitudinal so changes over time can be observed

Question 4

Give 3 weaknesses of case studies

Answer 4

-they focus on a very small sample so can be difficult to generalise findings

-they can’t be replicated so lack scientific vigour as they can’t be tested for reliability

-researcher may become too deeply involved with the ppts so can lack objectivity

Question 5

A content analysis is a …

People are studied … based on the …

Answer 5

statistical process that involves categorising and quantifying events and behaviour

indirectly , based on the communications they produce

Question 6

What is meant by coding?

Answer 6

the process of placing data into categories

Question 7

Describe the 4 step procedure used to carry out a content analysis

Answer 7

1)Get to know data thoroughly by repeatedly viewing or reading the data
2)Identify important categories within the data
3)Work carefully through data and tally number of occurences for each category
4)Check reliability using either test-retest or inter-rater

Question 8

Thematic analysis is …

Answer 8

a technique used to identify patterns of meaning and themes in data

Question 9

Give 4 points about the procedure followed for a thematic analysis

Answer 9

1)Use coding to initially analyse the data
2)Review the coded data and look for emergent themes
3)Support for these themes comes from direct quotes from the data set
4)The validity of themes is checked by collecting a new set of data

Question 10

Give 2 strengths of content and thematic analysis as analytical methods

Answer 10

+they allow patterns in data to be analysed allowing conclusions to be drawn

+they can be replicated as data can be retained and accessed by other researchers , can be tested for reliability

Question 11

Give 1 weakness of using a content/thematic analysis

How can this be improved?

Answer 11

-they are subjective methods as judgement is needed to define categories and coding units , so may be biased

by triangulating with other sources of evidence to improve validity