Case Studies And Content Analysis

• Case studies

  Involves analysis of unusal individuals/events. Usually produces qualitative data and takes place overa long period of time (longitudinal data)
• Content analysis

  Type of observational research where people are studies indirectly via the communications they have produced. These forms are wide-ranging: spoken interaction, written forms or even the media.
• Coding and Quantitative Data

  Coding is the initial stage of Content Analysis and large data sets need to be categorised into meaningful units producing forms of quantitative data.
• Thematic analysis and qualitative data

  Thematic analysis is the process of coding and identification of themes. Themes refer to any idea explicity/implicity that is recurrent. Likely to be more desriptive than the coding units in content analysis. Themes will often emerge once the data has been coded. Researcher may collect a new set of data to test the validity of the themes/categories and when satifsfied with the results, researcher will write up the final report, typically using direct quots from the data to illustrate each theme.
• Strengths of content analysis

  Can circumnavigate many of the ethical issues associated with psychological research as the research already exists within the public domain so no issues with obtaining permission. Communicaion of a more senseitive nature can lead to higher external validity. Content analysis is also flexible as it produces both qualitative/quantitative depending on the aims of the research.
• Limitations of content analysis

  People are studied indirectly so the communications they produce are analysed outside of the context in which they occurred. There is a danger that the researcher may attribute opinions and motivations to the speaker or writer that weren't originally intended. May suffer a lack of objectivity, especially when a more descriptive formof thematic analysis is employed.