This article , written by Bent Flyvbjerg (Aalborg University, Denmark) examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias towards verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.
Contents
- The conventional wisdom about case-study research
- The role of cases in human learning
- Cases as "Black Swans"
- Strategies for case selection
- Do case studies contain a subjective bias?
- The irreducible quality of good case narratives
Source
Flyvbjerg, B. (2006) Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research. Sage Publications. Retrieved from http://flyvbjerg.plan.aau.dk/Publications2006/0604FIVEMISPUBL2006.pdf
Comments
There are currently no comments. Be the first to comment on this page!
Add new comment
Login Login and comment as BetterEvaluation member or simply fill out the fields below.