Case studies

• A case study if a range of data collected from an individual or group. This is usually done through the use of interviews and observations, but content analysis can be performed on written evidence.
• Usually conducted on:

  • Psychologically unusual individuals (eg Clive Wearing).
  • Unusual events (eg violent football riot).
  • Organisational practices (eg teaching at an outstanding school).
  • Typical individuals within a demographic (eg a group of working class boys).
• Case studies look at behaviour over a short period of time (snapshots). Longitudinal case studies follow up participants over many years and these show changes in the behaviour of the participants over time.
• Strengths of case studies:

  • Realism - Mostly qualitative investigations. Holistic approach to conducting research is favoured by humanistic psychologists, arguing the depth of details give highly valid insights are a true reflection of people experiences.
• Strengths of case studies:

  • Only way to investigate unusual or extreme human behaviour which can not be conducted in a lab due to ethical reasons. So, if it wasn't for case studies, this research may not have existed.
• Strengths of case studies:

  • Can be used to generate hypotheses that can be tested experimentally (eg testing for the existence of the Broca's area within the use of highly controlled use of fMRI scans).
• Limitations of case studies:

  • Accuracy - Interviews often form a large section of case studies but these depend of memories which may be inaccurate. Subjects of the case study may also lie to make themselves look good (social desirability).
• Limitations of case studies:

  • Findings can not be generalised due to the fact that there may be other unknown factors influencing the resulted behaviour. As well as this, the subjects are unique so exact replication to check for reliability are not possible.
• Limitations of case studies:

  • Researcher bias - Researcher decides what to include and exclude, which may result in the loss of objectivity due to the subject and researcher working closely for an extended period of time.