Post reflection- theme 6

This was a final theme which was about ‘qualitative research and case study research’.  We focused more on case study research as it covers qualitative methods as well, also we already talked a lot about qualitative methods in previous theme. In seminar we were divided in smaller groups and we discussed those papers we red for this theme and our understandings about case study research.

The definition of case study I have given in my pre-reflection is similar with Leif’s explanation about case study, ‘A case study is an in depth study of a particular situation rather than a sweeping statistical survey. It is a method used to narrow down a very broad field of research into one easily research-able topic. While it will not answer a question completely, it will give some indications and allow further elaboration and hypothesis creation on a subject.’ I think case studies are more like stories or scenario, which presents a complex situation involving a conflict or problem that characters in the case must negotiate. Case studies are used to help you to see that how the complexities of real life influence the decisions. It allows us to use different methods for investigation, for example qualitative and quantitative methods helps to collect data and understand the phenomena deeply. In seminar we discussed that case studies have several positive aspects such as you will never short the data, more participants in these kind of surveys and then off course more useful results. I have learnt that case studies can be of two types, first usually defined by researcher from a broad research field that doesn’t exist already where researcher can narrow down the research according to the main focus area (What he actually wants) and target group. Secondly, those case studies which are common and exist already in the world.

Summing up things, this theme was really interesting and I have learned many different concepts about case studies. Leif also told us that it is always good to have more than one case studies so researcher can compare them and can keep track of different kind of questions and also common questions. In this week, we also had a postponed lecture by Haibo Li which was about ‘design research and problem solutions’. The lecture was really informative as he used interesting short films to explain that how ideas are usually simple, defining a problem and finding a best and simple solutions.

However, this week was quiet good and I have learned a lot about different kind of research methods. I would say it was a good ending of the course.