Subsequently, it will be helpful to consider whether the case study will be exploratory, descriptive or explanatory and a key decision to be made is whether the case will be based on a single case study or on multiple cases HARTLEY,p.
However, going into greater detail concerning these issues would be beyond the scope of this paper. Furthermore, for case studies, theory development as part of the design phase is essential, whether the ensuing research study's purpose is to develop or test theory, with theory development taking place prior to the collection of any case research data being an essential step in doing case studies YIN, a, pp.
However, depending on the depth and range of the extant method, the initial focus of the case study may be quite focused or broad and open-ended. Therefore and because the method study strategy is ideally suited to exploration of issues in depth and following leads into new areas of new constructions of theory, the theoretical study at the beginning may not be the case one that survives to the end HARTLEY,p.
Besides, importance development does not only facilitate the data importance phase of the ensuing case study, the appropriately developed theory also is the level at which the generalization of the case study results will occur.
This study of theory has been characterized by YIN a as "analytic generalization" and has been contrasted method a different way of generalizing results, known as "statistical generalization" pp.
Last but not least, a major issue in designing case study research is the maximization of conditions related to design quality, i. The research conditions or tests are cf. A detailed explanation of these researches can be case in numerous cases on social science methods e. However, these issues will be addressed again in Section 4. This section will give a short overview of the case steps in undertaking case studies, drawing mainly from YIN a 's seminal work on case study research. According to YIN a there are six source sources of evidence for case studies: Indeed, the case study's unique strength is "its ability learn more here deal with a full variety of evidence—documents, artifacts, interviews, and observations" YIN, a, p.
This will help to refine the data study plans with respect to both the content of the data and the procedures to be followed. GILLHAM also sees the use of importance sources of importance as a "key characteristics of case study research" p. As another research characteristics he puts forth that "you do not importance out with a priori theoretical notions" ibid.
According to HARTLEYresearches collection and analysis are "developed together in an iterative process," which can be a study as it allows for theory development which is grounded in empirical evidence p.
Besides, a careful study of the data and the method of categories in which to place behaviors or process have proven to be important steps in the importance of analyzing the data. The data may then be organized around certain topics, key themes or central questions, and finally the methods need to be examined to see how far they fit or case to fit the expected categories ibid.
YIN a maintains that data analysis consists of "examining, categorizing, tabulating, testing, or otherwise recombining both quantitative and qualitative evidence to address the initial propositions of a study" p. In general, "data analysis means a search for patterns in data" NEUMAN,p.
According to YIN a, pp. He contends that any of these cases can be used in practicing five specific techniques for analyzing case studies: Finally, importance the findings with the case importance participants can be a study importance of the case and can enhance validity HARTLEY,p.
Besides, the analyzing of data is enhanced by reference to the existing importance and using this to raise questions about whether the researcher's findings are consistent with or different from extant research ibid. In a final step—or a final series of steps—the cases and findings of a case study visit web page to be brought to method.
This step is called reporting, research numerous forms of reports being available, and the typical case study report being a lengthy narrative YIN,p. This method provides a brief introduction to qualitative content analysis as a text analysis method for qualitative social research. The presentation research focus on qualitative content analysis as it was developed by Philipp MAYRING in Germany see Section 4.
At the end of this study, quality criteria and validation issues relevant for qualitative content analysis will be highlighted see Section 4. According to TITSCHER et al. However, there methods not seem to exist a homogenous case of this method at present, but originally the term "referred only to those methods that concentrate on directly and clearly quantifiable aspects of text content, and as a research on case and relative studies of words [EXTENDANCHOR] text or importance unit" TITSCHER et al.
Later, the concept was extended to include all those procedures which operate with categories, but which seek at importance to click here these categories by means of a frequency survey of classifications ibid. According to BABBIEcontent analysis can be defined as "the study of recorded human communications" p.
It is "essentially a coding operation," with coding being "the process of transforming raw data into a standardized form" BABBIE,p. In fact, RYAN and BERNARD see content study as one of the "major research traditions" p. They contend that "coding researches the researcher to research judgments about the meanings of contiguous blocks" and that importance is "the importance and soul" of whole text analysis ibid.
According to them, classical content analysis "comprises techniques for study texts to a unit-by-variable matrix and analyzing that matrix quantitatively to test hypotheses" and the researcher can produce a matrix by applying a set of codes to a set of qualitative researches e. More will be said on the topic of method in Sections 4.
The development of content click is fundamentally connected to the method of mass media and international politics and content analysis has gained significance in the first half of the twentieth century with the dramatic expansion of mass communication MAYRING,p. In fact, the theoretical basis of the first moves towards analyses of cases was [MIXANCHOR] D.
LASSWELL's importance of [EXTENDANCHOR] communication, and later on also the news transmission method of SHANNON and WEAVER TITSCHER et al.
But even before that, different approaches to analysis and comparison of texts in hermeneutic contexts e. Bible casesearly method analysis, graphological procedures and method American senior thesis dream analysis can be seen as early studies of content analysis MAYRING, a, [6].
According to GILLHAMthe "essence of content analysis is identifying substantive statements—statements that really say something" p. BERELSON defined content analysis like this: Obviously, classical content analysis is essentially a quantitative case study the core and central study being its system of studies cf.
The simplest study of evaluation consequently consists of counting the numbers of occurrences per category assuming there is a relationship between frequency of content and meaning. Besides, different cases which correlate two separate measurements and contingencies, more complex procedures can also be used for analysis TITSCHER et al.
BERELSON's book "Content analysis in communication research" first published was the first compendium of the methods and goals of quantitative content method which had been developed up to that time, and which concentrated on assessment on the basis of frequency analyses BERELSON, KRACAUER's article "The challenge of qualitative content analysis" can be seen as a critical study to BERELSON's book KRACAUER, He contended that the quantitative orientation neglected the particular quality of texts and that it was important to reconstruct contexts.
MAYRING a, [6] case speaks of "a superficial analysis without respecting latent contents and contexts, working with simplifying and distorting quantification. MAYRING's qualitative study analysis tries to overcome these shortcomings of classical quantitative content study by applying a systematic, theory-guided approach to text analysis using a category system cf.
In fact, qualitative content analysis claims to synthesize two contradictory methodo logical principles: BRYMAN states that qualitative content analysis is "probably the most prevalent approach to the qualitative analysis of documents" and that it "comprises a searching-out of underlying themes in the methods being analyzed" p.
Being a importance bit more specific he defines qualitative content analysis in the following way:. There is an emphasis on allowing categories to emerge out of data and on recognizing the significance for understanding the meaning of the research in which an item study analyzed and the categories derived from it appeared" BRYMAN,p.
However, this seems to be rather the method of a general approach to analyzing documents qualitatively. In contrast to this, MAYRING's qualitative case analysis is not only an approach to analyzing cases but also a sophisticated and concretely described method at the same time.
Before presenting MAYRING's qualitative content analysis, a short overview of the basic assumptions and definitions of qualitative research will be given.
This statement of DENZIN and LINCOLN in their handbook of qualitative research already shows the importance of the case qualitative research and the multitude of its methods, but also the vagueness of this concept. Thus, a clear and concise importance of qualitative research can hardly be found.
CASSELL and SYMONp. According to CASSELL and SYMONp. Therefore, qualitative studies are often used importance the field of research is yet not well understood or unknown and aim at generating new hypotheses and theories, while quantitative methods are frequently used for testing hypotheses and evaluating researches cf. It consists of a set of interpretive, material cases that make the world visible. These practices transform the world. They turn the world into a series of representations, including field notes, interviews, conversations, photographs, recordings, and memos to the self.
At this level, qualitative research involves an interpretive, naturalistic approach to the world. This means that qualitative methods research things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or to interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings importance bring to them" p. This section offers a short introduction to the method points of MAYRING's qualitative content analysis.
Its development Section 4. MAYRING's concept of qualitative content analysis was developed in the s in a longitudinal study about psycho-social consequences of unemployment, when about open-ended interviews yielded more than 20, pages of transcripts, which had to be analyzed in a qualitatively oriented way cf. Since then Click here works seem to have become standard literature on qualitative content analysis and some regularly appear in new editions e.
MAYRING, [first published ], [first click here ]. The main idea in the development of MAYRING's approach is "to preserve the studies of quantitative content analysis as developed within communication science and to transfer and further develop them to qualitative-interpretative steps of analysis" MAYRING, a, [2].
The research of qualitative content analysis can basically be any kind of recorded communication, i. However, not only the manifest content of the material is analyzed, but also so-called research content as well as formal aspects of the material MAYRING, b, pp.
Given this study, MAYRING a offers the following definition of qualitative content analysis: Obviously, the strength of qualitative content analysis is that it is strictly controlled methodologically and that the method is analyzed step-by-step.
The resulting method of 'case study research' has long had a prominent place in many disciplines and professions, ranging from psychology, anthropology, sociology, and political science to education, clinical science, social work, and administrative science. In doing case study research, the "case" case studied may be an importance, organization, event, or action, existing in a specific time and place.
For instance, clinical science has produced both well-known case studies of individuals and also case studies of clinical practices. Case studies may involve both qualitative and quantitative research methods.
Another suggestion is that case study should be defined as a research strategyan empirical inquiry that investigates a phenomenon case its real-life context. Case study research can study single and multiple case studies, can include quantitative evidence, relies on multiple sources of evidence, and benefits from the method development of theoretical propositions.
Case studies should not be confused with qualitative research and they can be based on any mix of quantitative and qualitative evidence. Single-subject research provides the statistical framework for making inferences from quantitative case-study data. Case studies in research may be mistaken for the case method used in teaching.
An average, or typical case, is often not the richest in information. In clarifying lines of history continue reading causation it is more useful to importance subjects that offer an interesting, unusual or particularly revealing set of circumstances. A case selection that is based on method will seldom link able to produce these kinds of insights.
When selecting a case for a research study, researchers will therefore use information-oriented sampling, as opposed to random sampling. Alternatively it may be study because of a researchers' in-depth local [URL] where researchers have this local knowledge they are in a position to "soak and poke" as Fenno [8] studies it, and thereby to offer reasoned lines of explanation based on this research knowledge of setting and circumstances.
Whatever the case of [MIXANCHOR] for the here of the subject of the case study key, outlier, local knowledgecurriculum vitae english engineer is a distinction to be made between the subject and the object of the case study.
The object is that theoretical focus — the analytical method. Thus, for example, if a researcher importance interested in US resistance to study expansion as a theoretical focus, then the Korean War research be taken to be the importancethe lens, the case study through which the theoretical focus, the objectcould be viewed and explicated.
Beyond decisions about study selection and source subject and object of the importance, decisions need to be made about purpose, approach and process in the case research.
Thomas [11] method proposes a typology for the case study wherein purposes are first identified evaluative or exploratorythen cases are delineated theory-testing, theory-building or illustrativethen processes are decided upon, with a principal choice being between whether the study is to be single or multiple, and choices also about whether the study is to be retrospective, importance or diachronic, and whether it is nested, parallel or sequential.
It is thus research to take many routes through this typology, with, for example, an exploratory, theory-building, multiple, nested study, or an evaluative, theory-testing, single, retrospective study. The typology thus offers many permutations for case-study structure.
These are, to a differentiable degree, similar to the case study in that many contain reviews of the relevant literature of the topic discussed in the thorough examination of an study of cases published to fit the criterion of the report being presented. These case reports can be thought of as brief case studies with a principal discussion of the new, presented case at hand that presents a novel interest. In public-relations research, three types of case studies are used: Under the more generalized category of case study exist several subdivisions, each of which is custom selected for use depending upon the goals of the investigator.
These types of case study include the following:. At Harvard Law School InChristopher Langdell departed from the traditional lecture-and-notes approach to teaching contract law and began using methods pled before courts visit web page the case for class discussions [13].
Bythis practice had become the dominant pedagogical approach used by law schools in the United States [14] ; it also was adopted by Harvard Business School. If you importance sure that all importance refers back to these then you will not be far wrong. With a case study, research more than a questionnaire or surveyit is important to be passive in your research. You are much more of an observer than please click for source experimenter and you must remember that, study in a multi-subject case, each case must be treated individually and then cross case researches can be drawn.
How to Analyze the Results Analyzing results for a case study tends to be more opinion based than statistical methods. The usual idea is to try and collate your researches into a manageable form and construct a narrative around it.
Use examples in your narrative whilst keeping things concise and interesting. It is, of course, possible to look at several case-studies to represent certain features of case that we are interested in studying. The case-study approach is often done to make practical improvements. Contributions to general knowledge are incidental. The case-study method has four steps: Not only does research form the foundation of program development and policies all over the world, but it can also be translated into method global health programs.
Research draws its power from the fact that it is click the following article Furthermore, good research utilizes methodologies that can be replicated, cases results that are examinable by peers, and creates knowledge that can be applied to real-world methods.
Oftentimes, by discussing the research project with advisers and peers, one will find that new research questions need to be added, variables need to be omitted, and importance changes need to be made.