case study, pilot study, peer review

• what is a case study? 


  a case study is an in-depth investigation of in individual or a small group of people, usually regarding rare behaviour being investigated or a biographical event (trauma) to a research field
• what is a longitudinal type of research?


  a type of correlational research, which follows particular individuals where the researcher collects data over an extended period of time (weeks, months, years, decades)
• what is positive about a case study? 


  if it is a longitudinal case study then it allows us to see how behaviour may change over time
• what is positive about a case study? 



  this affects the opportunity to collect detailed information about a situation.
• what is positive about a case study? 



  this is used in circumstances which would not be ethical to examine experimentally
• what is negative about a case study? 



  if quantitative data was collected, then researcher bias and subjectivity can interfere with the validity of the findings.
• what is negative about a case study? 



  its difficult to generalise any findings to the wider population since only one individual was studied.
• what is negative about a case study? 



  if the individual was re-calling past events, such as childhood experiences, then their memories may not be accurate.