Case studies
Cards (18)
- A case study is an in depth study that gathers a lot of detail about one person or a small group
- Case studies are…
- In depth
- Longitudinal (gathered over an extended period of time)
- Gathered from a variety of sources
- Use a triangulation of data and methods
- Techniques include
- Interviews
- Questionnaires
- Experiments
- Secondary data
- Case histories
- Phineas Gage was a railroad worker who suffered a massive brain injury after an iron rod was driven through his head.
- The result of Phineas Gage’s injury, he became aggressive - however was able to do function normally
- Phineas Gage’s case study - interviewed friends, family and co-workers
- Phineas Gage’s case study - used secondary data such as medical records and newspaper articles
- H.M -developed severe amnesia at age 27 after undergoing brain surgery as a form of treatment for his epilepsy
- H.M’s surgery involved the removal of larger parts of the hippocampus on both sides of his brain - unable to store any new information in long-term memory
- Leborgne, was only able to say the word ‘Tan’ - Broca examined his brain and found that there was a lesion in his left frontal lobe - now named “Broca’s area”
- Strength - rich and detailed qualitative data
- Strength - avoids practical and ethical issues
- Strength - triangulation draws together results from many areas
- Weakness - researcher bias on subjective opinions causes low validity
- Weakness - small sample size means it is difficult to generalise findings
- Weakness - lack of replication
- Weakness - time consuming to draw in lots of data from multiple sources