1. CONCEPTS TO BE INCLUDED
Case studies
Diagnostic research
Problem analysis
Temporal within case variation
Spatial within case variation

2. CASE STUDIES

3. AIM Introducing three types of questions answered in ‘case studies’
Clarifying aspects of doing case studies
Relating case study research to other types of research

4. DEFINITION
Research aimed at answering a research question about a single unit of analysis or about a single setting
Best seen as a characteristic of the research question
NOT a type of research design
NOT a data collection method

5. EXAMPLE I: problem analysis
What is wrong in this company?
Or with this individual? And why?
Problem analysis
Descriptive (What is or could be the problem?)
Exploratory (Why is something wrong?) (aka diagnostic, causal)

6. EXAMPLE II: (ex post) outcome evaluations
Did the intervention solve the problem of the patient?
Did the cure help?
Evaluation research
Descriptive research
Causal research

7. EXAMPLE III: causal research
Is the availability of natural resources (gas, oil) affecting the level of democracy in Russia?
Causal research
Availability of natural resources Level of democracy -
negative

8. TYPES OF QUESTIONS, TYPES OF CASE STUDIES
(Setting case studies: Behavior of young adults: the case of The Netherlands)
Exploratory case studies: Which factors may have caused this person to become an alcoholic? Why problems in this organization?
Diagnostic case studies (interpretive, applied research): Why did the spaceship Challenger explode in mid-air?
Testing causal hypotheses case studies: What is the effect of the amount of natural resources on the level of democracy in Russia? / Did cure help patient?
Especially type 2 (1) and 3 (2) are not always easy to distinguish, generally, type 1 is done without a clear theory and type 2 is strongly based on an existing theory, including general ideas about causes and effects.

9. 1. EXPLORATORY CASE STUDIES
Which factors may have caused this person to become an alcoholic? Asking individuals (reasons) Studying the background of individuals Coming up with specific hypotheses, sometimes checking whether the indicated causes were indeed present
Do NOT mentioning using theories, because that would be diagnostic!

10. 2. DIAGNOSTIC CASE STUDIES
a.k.a. “Modus operandi method”: Spaceship Challenger
January 1986! Check out video’s on the internet … Interesting movie called “The Challenger Disaster” in which the role of Richard Feynman is put central …

11. DIAGNOSTIC CASE STUDIES
Y is the case Challenger exploded X is a cause of Y O-ring qualityleakageexplosion X is the case Low temp + O-ring not tested for low temp  low O-ring quality  X may have caused Y (O-ring maybe caused explosion) Using causal hypotheses to offer an explanation

12. DIAGNOSTIC CASE STUDIES (second example)
Why did the dinosaurs become extinct?
65 million years ago

13. DIAGNOSTIC CASE STUDIES
Y is the case dinosaurs were extinct X is a cause of Y meteorite  temperature decline  no food  extinction X is the case indications that a meteorite collided with earth around that time X may have caused Y  meteorite may have caused extinction Research here is mainly about ‘finding out whether X is true’ (and ruling out other factors)

14. 3. HYPOTHESIS TESTING IN CASE STUDIES
In diagnostic research, the hypotheses used are uncontested Research is mainly about whether X is present What is the effect of the amount of natural resources (X) on the level of democracy (Y) in Russia? X and Y are observed, the general causal relationship is contested

15. HYPOTHESIS TESTING IN CASE STUDIES
Russia is one Unit of Analysis, but can we maybe find different instances or units of observation WITHIN Russia?
Two possibilities:
Temporal variation within a case
Spatial variation within a case

16. TEMPORAL VARIATION Level of anti-democratic rhetoric of the president
High
Jan 2009
Aug 2008
Jan 2010
June 2008
June 2009
Dec 2009
Jan 2008
Low
Low
Price of oil
High
Cross sectional research design

17. SPATIAL VARIATION
Does Sun Protection Factor 30 on MY body help to block the sun better than SPF 15? SPF Burns -

18. SPATIAL VARIATION
Randomly assign parts of my two legs to either SPF15 or SPF30 (X)
Measure sun burn (Y) on all parts
Relate sun burn to SPF15 or SPF30
= Experiment with a treatment and a control group

19. THIS MICROLECTURE Three types of research questions about ‘cases’:
Exploratory, sometimes hypothesis generating
Diagnostic, theory based
Hypothesis testing, using within case analysis:
Temporal variation
Spatial variation
Case study is neither research design nor datacollection method

21. IMAGES USED
No reference needed