How to Do Your Case Study : A Guide for Students and Researchers
ISBN: 9780857025630 | 0857025635
Format: PaperbackPublisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
Pub. Date: 1/19/2011
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In this lucid, accessible and often witty new text, Gary Thomas introduces students and researchers to the basics of case study research.
'This very readable and well crafted book should significantly advance thinking about the conduct of case study research. It impressively demonstrates, through well-selected examples, the uses of case studies within a wide range of disciplines and practical fields of study and dispels some popular misconceptions of this research genre in the process.' - John Elliot - Emeritus Pro... MORE
'This very readable and well crafted book should significantly advance thinking about the conduct of case study research. It impressively demonstrates, through well-selected examples, the uses of case studies within a wide range of disciplines and practical fields of study and dispels some popular misconceptions of this research genre in the process.' - John Elliot - Emeritus Pro... MORE
| Preface | p. xi |
| Getting your bearings | p. 1 |
| What is a case study? | p. 3 |
| Is the case study scientific? | p. 7 |
| Some definitions | p. 9 |
| What is a case? | p. 11 |
| What is and is not a case? | p. 14 |
| What is the case study good and not good for? | p. 17 |
| If you take only one thing from this chapter, take this ... | p. 23 |
| Further read... MORE | p. 23 |
| Case study and research design | p. 25 |
| Doing the right kind of research | p. 25 |
| What is design? | p. 26 |
| First things first: your purpose | p. 27 |
| Next, your question | p. 28 |
| How to go from idea to question to case study | p. 31 |
| Questions and different approaches to research | p. 35 |
| Design frames and methods | p. 37 |
| Using storyboards to help you design your case study | p. 38 |
| If you take only one thing from this chapter, take this ... | p. 43 |
| Further reading | p. 44 |
| Models of the whole | p. 45 |
| Why am I reading this chapter? | p. 45 |
| Break things down or see them as wholes? | p. 45 |
| Gestalt psychology | p. 49 |
| Dramas, theatres and stages | p. 50 |
| Ecological psychology | p. 52 |
| Systems thinking | p. 55 |
| If you take only one thing from this chapter, take this ... | p. 59 |
| Further reading | p. 59 |
| Ensuring quality in your case study: what's important? | p. 61 |
| Is the 'sample' important? | p. 61 |
| Do I have to worry about reliability and validity in a case study? | p. 62 |
| Quality | p. 66 |
| Ethics | p. 68 |
| If you take only one thing from this chapter, take this ... | p. 71 |
| Further reading | p. 71 |
| Getting down to doing it | p. 73 |
| Kinds of case studies: finding your case | p. 75 |
| How do you find your case? | p. 75 |
| Same starting points, different paths - there's no right way | p. 89 |
| Kinds of case studies | p. 90 |
| If you take only one thing from this chapter, take this ... | p. 95 |
| Further reading | p. 96 |
| Your purpose | p. 97 |
| Intrinsic | p. 98 |
| Instrumental | p. 98 |
| Evaluative | p. 99 |
| Explanatory | p. 101 |
| Exploratory | p. 104 |
| If you take only one thing from this chapter, take this ... | p. 109 |
| Further reading | p. 109 |
| Your approach | p. 111 |
| Building a theory | p. 112 |
| Testing a theory | p. 115 |
| Drawing a picture - illustrative-demonstrative | p. 118 |
| Interpretative | p. 124 |
| Experimental | p. 129 |
| If you take only one thing from this chapter, take this ... | p. 134 |
| Further reading | p. 135 |
| Your process | p. 137 |
| The single case | p. 138 |
| The multiple or collective or comparative case (or cross-case analysis) | p. 141 |
| Retrospective | p. 145 |
| The snapshot | p. 146 |
| Diachronic studies | p. 149 |
| Nested case studies | p. 152 |
| Parallel and sequential studies | p. 155 |
| If you take only one thing from this chapter, take this ... | p. 157 |
| Further reading | p. 158 |
| Getting on with it and finishing | p. 159 |
| Out in the field: some ways to collect data and evidence | p. 161 |
| Interviews | p. 162 |
| Accounts | p. 163 |
| Diaries | p. 164 |
| Group interviews and focus groups | p. 164 |
| Interrogating documents | p. 164 |
| Questionnaires | p. 165 |
| Observation | p. 165 |
| Image-based methods | p. 166 |
| Measurements and tests | p. 167 |
| Official statistics and other numerical data | p. 167 |
| If you take only one thing from this chapter, take this ... | p. 168 |
| Further reading | p. 168 |
| A toolkit for analysing and thinking | p. 170 |
| Constant comparative method: eliciting themes | p. 171 |
| Systems thinking | p. 173 |
| Drawing storyboards - the nuts and bolts | p. 176 |
| Developing your theory | p. 178 |
| Using narrative | p. 184 |
| Think drama | p. 188 |
| Being intuitive and imaginative | p. 190 |
| If you take only one thing from this chapter, take this ... | p. 192 |
| Further reading | p. 193 |
| Writing your study | p. 194 |
| Structure | p. 194 |
| Writing up your case study | p. 196 |
| Some rules for writers | p. 202 |
| If you take only one thing from tins chapter, take this ... | p. 205 |
| Further reading | p. 205 |
| The fancy stuff: generalisation, induction, abduction, phronesis and theory | p. 206 |
| What can the case study tell us? | p. 206 |
| Generalisation - is the case study really all that bad? | p. 210 |
| Finding or regularising | p. 215 |
| If you take only one thing from this chapter, take this ... | p. 216 |
| ... and this - a final final thought | p. 217 |
| Further reading | p. 217 |
| Other reading | p. 218 |
| References | p. 219 |
| Index | p. 225 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
Gary Thomas is Professor of Education at the University of Birmingham. He has received awards from the ESRC, the Nuffield Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust, national and local government, and a number of charities for research and inquiry on a wide range of topics.
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