1. Ready!
Read the ‘Genie’ case study

2. How many examples can you think of?
Get set!
Case Studies
How many examples can you think of?

3. Learning Objectives Outline what is meant by a case study
Explain why they are used in child psychology
Give examples of case studies in child psychology
Explain the strengths and limitations
of using case studies.

4. Go! Features of Case Studies
They focus on a sample of either one individual, group or organisation.
They study that sample in-depth
A type of descriptive research where independent and dependent variable are not used to test cause and effect.

5. Example of Individual:
Oxana Malaya (2001)

6. Example of Group: Depression (Merritt, 2006).
‘I wasn't really keen on the idea… I was sort of thinking I don't want to be dependent on taking drugs. It just doesn't feel right… it's like an easy option.’ (25; Male; 2nd episode).
‘I hate the thought of being on them… Does that make sense? I just don't want to be on antidepressants, I just think it's wrong.’ (20; Female; 1st episode).

7. Example of organisation:
Nazi Party

8. Methods used in Case Studies:
Unstructured interviews.
Observations.
Past records: medical histories, diaries etc.

9. Uses of Case Studies:
Atypical Behaviour/Conditions: Autism, brain damage, obsessive compulsive disorder etc.
Unusual Situations: Feral children etc.
Usually small samples as not many people/ organisations are affected.
Give insight into how to help, what’s going on ‘normally’ and prevention.
Give in-depth insight, so may choose to do a case study despite large target population available.

10. Strengths Limitations
Offer high levels of validity as they go into depth and give insight.
They allow researchers to study events or complex psychological areas they could not practically or ethically manipulate.
If large numbers of people are unavailable or don’t exist.
Learn about issues not yet understood.
Efficient as it only takes one case study to disprove a theory.
Small samples make it difficult to generalise.
Bias: researchers can become too involved and lose their objectivity: misinterpreting or influencing outcomes.
Often after the event, so can be difficult to establish cause & effect.
Lack of control: extraneous variables can effect outcome.

11. Summary
Case studies are in-depth investigations of one person or group of people.
Case studies are detailed enough to give valid findings but it is difficult to generalise from them.