Case Studies - Research method

• What are case studies and how are they a research method?

  > In depth look at an individual or small group of people

  > Looks at behaviour and feelings

  > Creates quantitative (interview) and qualitative (scores of psychometric tests) data
• How do case studies link to cognitive psychology?

  > Brain damaged patients are used to establish the link between damage to specific areas of the brain and the effects on cognitive processes
• What are the strengths of case studies?

  > Avoids ethical issues of invasive investigation

  > Utilises neuroimaging techniques ( objective )

  > Collecting large amount of data using several techniques (triangulation), checks concurrent validity
• What are the weaknesses of case studies?

  > Only study patient after damage, can't establish 'cause and effect'.

  > Neuroimaging may not be sensitive enough to pick up smaller sites

  > Individuals, not generalisable to other individuals