Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Case & Interpretive Research - Coggle Diagram
Case & Interpretive Research
Case Research
- A case study is a way of closely examining something in its real-life setting, usually by looking at one place or just a few places over a period of time.
Methods
Interviews
- a conversation where a researcher asks someone questions to learn about their experiences, opinions, or knowledge on a topic.
Observations
- a researcher watches people, places, or events to understand what’s happening without interfering.
Pre-recorded documents
- materials that already exist like reports, videos, emails, or records, that a researcher looks at to learn about a topic.
Secondary Data
- industry reports and company documents, including things like who is on the leadership team and how well the company is doing financially.
Case Design
Single Case
- This approach works best when you’re first trying to build a new theory, when the situation is unusual or extreme, when it reveals something researchers haven’t been able to study before, or when it challenges or helps test an existing theory.
Multi-Case
- more appropriate for theory testing, for establishing generalisability of inferences, and for developing richer and more nuanced interpretations of a phenomenon.
Conducting Research
Define Research Question
- Case studies start by picking meaningful research questions and forming early ideas about what the answers might be. In positivist studies these ideas come from existing theory, while interpretive studies avoid using preset theories at the start.
Select Case Sites
- Researchers choose case sites based on what will best help them develop or test ideas, not by picking them randomly. This is called “theoretical sampling,” and it focuses on what’s most useful for the theory rather than on statistics.
Create Protocols
- Because case studies mostly gather information through interviews, it’s important to create a plan to guide the conversation. This plan is basically just a list of questions you want to ask during the interview.
Select Respondent
- Choose people to interview from different levels, departments, and job roles within the organization so you can get a variety of viewpoints on the topic you’re studying.
Start Collection
- Record interviews digitally so you can review them later, but only if the person being interviewed agrees. Even when recording, it’s a good idea to take notes to capture key points, important comments, or notable reactions.
Collect Internal Data and Conduct Cross Case
- Data analysis can happen while you’re still collecting information, which lets you adjust questions or explore new themes as they arise. In multi-site studies, the next step is to compare cases across locations. Researchers focus on common patterns while ignoring unique local differences that could be misleading.
Test hypothesis
- Hypotheses should be tested against the data, and if they don’t match, the ideas or relationships should be adjusted.
1 more item...
Interpretive Research
- This research approach assumes that social reality isn’t fixed or the same for everyone. Instead, it’s shaped by people’s experiences and the social environments they live in.
Naturalistic Inquiry
- Social events and behaviors should be studied in the real-life settings where they actually occur.
Research as Instrument
- Researchers are part of the social setting they study and use their observations, relationships, and questioning skills to gather accurate information.
Interpretive Analysis
- Observations should be understood from the participants’ perspectives. First, see the situation as they experience it; second, interpret the meaning to create a detailed, rich description of what’s happening.
Use of Expressive Language
- Recording and analyzing both what participants say and how they say it is an essential part of interpretive analysis.
Hermeneutic Circle
- Interpretive analysis involves going back and forth between individual observations and the whole context to resolve differences and build a theory that reflects the varied experiences and viewpoints of participants.
Data Collection
Interviews
- face-to-face, telephone, or focus groups
Observation
- There are two types of observation: direct observation, where the researcher watches without taking part, and participant observation, where the researcher is actively involved and their presence affects what’s happening.
Documentation
- Researchers can use documents, like emails, reports, financial statements, news articles, or websites, to gain more insight into the topic or to support other evidence.
Research Design
Case Research
- a detailed, long-term examination of a phenomenon at one or more sites to understand it deeply and see how it changes over time.
Action Research
- a qualitative, but somewhat scientific, approach focused on testing ideas instead of creating them. It studies complex social situations by making changes or interventions and then observing the results.
Participatory Action Research
- This method uses a five-step action research cycle: identify the problem, plan a solution, take action, evaluate the results, and learn from the process.
Ethnography
- focuses on studying something within its cultural setting. The researcher spends a long time fully immersed in the community to understand it deeply.
Phenomenology
- a research method that emphasizes the study of conscious experiences as a way of understanding the reality around us (Human experience source of all knowledge.