Reflection Theme 6: Qualitative and Case Study Research

The beneficial part of the first seminar was that I felt we had already covered a discussion about qualitative methods during an earlier theme, which made the arguments stronger and more developed than I had expected. But also creating a deeper interest and desire towards different approaches that are possible to use in qualitative methods. While selecting my article I felt that I have basically prioritized my own interest, which have increased my curiosity for reading the articles and getting more and more dedicated to my choice throughout the course. Similar to previous seminars regarding quantitative methods, we discussed the different point of views about qualitative methods in articles we had chosen in our groups, and after this presented it towards the rest of the seminar group.

For a short period during the last seminar the student that were attending discussed the already written explanation about Case Study at the Wiki page that is used throughout the course, and where students have the possibility to edit the information. The group argued that the case study is probably something that everybody will have use of in our master thesis, although it won’t be something we will write about. Through this conclusion we also came in to the discussion that many papers are a Case Study but perhaps not aware of that fact. While attending this last seminar I felt that the structure of the seminars were well planned, with the strongest method in the end. The quantitative and qualitative methods both have their advantages and disadvantages, which I have come to sense with during the course. There are always many surrounding factors that are significant in the choice of method when planning a research. But there is no doubt that the combination of these two, which could be relevant in a Case Study, could have the strongest outcome in both depth and generalization. If the study combines the two methods and consist of similar outcome, the benefit is that it will answer the five W’s: who, what, when, where and why. The five W’s are questions are somewhat of great importance in information-gathering, and have their roots from 1902 and a famous poetry by Rudyard Kipling:
“I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who”

The conclusion is that Case Study is not only looking for patterns, but also understanding. So instead of perhaps only sending out surveys, which are anonymous and impersonal, the researcher spend some time (if e.g doing a research at a company) and by approaching in this way gather a deeper understanding in order to filter content for the research. It is although important to take in to consideration that there could be a dissimilar result while using two methods, but if the scenario is that the two methods are showing similar results, it is obvious that the researcher have a stronger case and a more powerful research than while just using one method.

 During the weeks two seminars the attendance rate was not as high as in the beginning of the course.  Although I didn’t feel that it affected the discussions about the themes, but brought out opinions from students that earlier did not take as much space.