During this week, we had a lecture and a seminar covering the aspects of
qualitative and case study research. During the lecture Hanna Hasselqvist talked
about her study: ”A car-free year: Exploring sustainable transportation practices
through a qualitative study”. During class I raised the question of whether she
had considered including commercial partners, how the study was financed and if
she perceived her research as being interdisciplinary.
The lecture increased my understanding of how different actors can
benefit from the results of the research and how the researcher has to change
the perspective to include different view- and focal points. I can imagine it
being challenging to juggle the discrepancy between the public and the academia
as well as the political and commercial aspects. During the lecture I also
learned the difference between the terms multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary
and transdisciplinary. When a study is multidisciplinary, the researchers comes
from different background and they wear the ”hats” of their respective field of
conduct. One example would be a design research study where one of the
researchers is a child psychologist and one researcher is a computer scientist.
With an interdisciplinary approach, the same person is contributing to several
disciplines, but there is still a distinction between the different fields of
conduct. With a transdisciplinary approach on the other hand, the borders are
erased and the researchers involved aims at creating knowledge that move beyond
a specific research discipline or subject. During this week’s lecture I also
got a greater insight in how much work that needs to be put into planning for
and recruiting participants for research studies. Analysing the data that were
collected as a part of the study seemed very time-consuming as well.
During the seminar I learnt that case studies are especially valuable in
situations were one does not have sufficient information or know a subject well
enough to formulate a research question. Ilias explained during the seminar
that it is not always the answer to the question that is the aim of a design
research study, but rather to come up with questions. This was an interesting
shift in perspective for me. This was also something that I felt could be
applied to the research paper that I choose for this theme. When we discussed the questions given for this theme,
my group talked about how it sometimes can be hard to distinguish if the
study is purely qualitative or if it counts as a design research study. The particularly
paper that we discussed examined nine different case companies, within
different fields. I think what confused
me was the width of the subjects covered, as I imagine case studies to focus
more on the specifics. During our discussion we settled on that it in fact was
a case study, since the question in hand were examined in depth (social media),
even though the outset were more general (nine companies with different prerequisites).
We also talked about it being a strategic choice to increase the
generalizability of the study by including a lot of different setting for the
theory to be adopted to.
Hi! You've written a very interesting and well written post, thank you! I found your questions for the lecture very interesting, would have been interesting to hear her answers and motivations behind it (as I was sick and missed the lecture), as well as why you found those questions interesting!
SvaraRaderaI agree with what you wrote about case study being about asking questions, and not always the answer to the question that is the aim. I think that's a very interesting aspect of case studies. As well as it not always being a specific company or event that is being researched, it can also be a specific phenomenon or a question. The paper you discussed examined 9 different companies, quiet many, but is still a case study, as it was the question in hand that was in focus, even thought the outset was more general.
I also like how you explained the terms multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary. I wasn't familiar with those terms before, and I feel like you gave a very good explanation, thank you!
Hi, thanks for the thoughtful and interesting post! Your viewpoint on the post conveys the interesting idea on "case study", which I find it intriguing, especially you explains the terminologies regarding multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches. However, I think that a transdisciplinary approach is recommended for all early intervention and support services to service delivery, which moves instruction beyond just blending disciplines. This approach links concepts and skills through a real-world perspective.
SvaraRaderaOy,
SvaraRaderaYes having to research on a case study in order to come up with a research question and gather more information on a certain matter would define the subject but I dont think it is exclusively for that matter. You could have as well a research question that doesn't have the correct information or partial and studying a case would provide more data on the question. But I agree that in order to find a question, the case study is most likely the better choice, depending on the field as well.
I think having 9 different case study with different prerequisite requires a stronger man power in order to follow everything on a perfect/research level. Therefore, its not usually the case to have 9 companies to study on.
Thank you for your reflection !
Since I wasn't able to attend to the lecture I found the first part of your reflection very educative and interesting. I haven't heard of these three terms before, but now, thanks to you, I know of them and I have an idea what they mean.
SvaraRaderaWhen it comes to case studies I totally agree with what you've written and I was surprised over the same things as you. However, when I read about case studies, I learnt that they could include one or several cases, which conforms to the paper we talked about with nine different cases. But then again, there must exist some kind of limit of how many cases that can be included. Moreover, as Ilias said at the seminar, it can, to some extent, be up to the author/researcher to decide exactly what kind of study they have made. As in this case, the author said that it was a case study, and maybe we should take her/his word for it even though there are things pointing to something else.
What a nice reflection you wrote! Thank you for that. Just like the understanding that the aim of case studies to come up with questions was a real perspective changer for me. I simply didn’t know about that before, although it is obviously a central aspect of case studies.
SvaraRaderaFurther the thought about different people who benefit from the outcome of a research is really interesting for me, too. Especially when the funder for a research is someone that has own intentions on what could come out that is helpful for them. Together with that goes, that in some cases the anonymity of the probands can be secured, what is one of the essentials of researches in general. So it can be sometimes a challenge to do a research so that it satisfies the interest of all involved partners.