Theme 6: Qualitative and Case Study Research

Qualitative Methods
 Sheltered in Cyberspace? Computer use among the unsheltered "street" homeless from the journal Computers in human behavior with impact factor 2.067.

The study examined 100 unsheltered homeless persons located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The main purpose of the study was to analyze usage of computers and how greater access could be a beneficial way to enhance social support, which improves opportunities to create positive outcomes for this fragile minority. According to a national report on homelessness by US department of Houring and Urban Development, 643 067 individuals were homeless on one winter night. In the beginning of the report the researches define homeless people as "an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence".

To get participants the researchers interviewed five individuals who had been sleeping on the streets for several years. These were introduced through a local homeless services provider. These five were given 25 dollars each, and also "friend referral cards", that they could use to gather other homeless people that they thought could participate. For each card, they got 10 dollars. 100 interviews were in the end completed.

The measures were collected in DIS/HS (Homeless Supplement to the Diagnostic Interview Schedule) And ASI (Addiction Severity Index) The article used a mixture of Data analyzing methods, both Quantitative and Qualitative. In the quantitative part the investigators charted statistics such as Demographic (which included sex, age, education, religious views, income, relationship status etc), homelessness (self-definition of homelessness or not, sleeping place for the last 14 nights etc) and psychiatric variables (ASI, alcohol and drug use). The qualitative data were transcribed and analyzed by the researchers and created a list of themes that emerged from the data.

By using both the methods there is a greater understanding in both depth and mapping out the problems. Although there are also improvements that could have been made. For example there was a nonrandom technique to recruit participants (“friend referral cards”), from only a certain neighborhood. This means that it is not possible to generalize the conclusions that were made. The researchers also studied a fairly new area, which made it hard for them to have enough background in the subject – although they state in their discussion – it’s a first step in this area of investigation.

While reading the article I didn’t feel that I got a greater understanding about qualitative methods, because of the fact that we already had seminars discussing disadvantages and advantage. We have also covered the subject while writing Theme 4 and the reflection.


Case Study

A case study is a research study, which mainly is used in order to support interpretation. This tool could have different goals when used. With multiple investigators, the case study would allow the researchers grasping towards an explanation and understanding of the issue or object that is examined. The multiple investigators, which are shown in table 1 (Eisenhardt K. M.), could be a combination of qualitative and quantitative research. Although, it does not have to be both of them. The case study research could also have a potential aim to add up strength and would be relevant to clarify an already previous presented study. It is also accurate to create a seamless combination between an occurrence and a context when it is not apparent in the research.

The process of building theory from Case Study Research through my selected Case Study Social media competitive analysis and text mining: A case study in the pizza industry has certain strengths. These are especially the clear structure and disposition through out the paper. Some certain steps are easy to recognize such as the definition of the research questions, after explaining the reason of the chosen area of subject: According to PMQ Pizza Magazine (2010), the pizza industry is one of the largest representatives of resturants, and stands for more than 10% of all food service sales. And the study is aimed to cover text mining to analyze unstructured text content on Facebook and Twitter sites for three large pizza chains: Pizza Hut, Domino's Pizza and Papa John's Pizza. The selected cases are an interesting choice when I first read the title, but they underline information which contributes towards understanding why they chose this area in the food chain. The research questions are following:
- What patterns can be found from their Facebook sites respectively?

- What patterns can be found from their Twitter sites respectively?

- What are the main differences in terms of their Facebook and Twitter patterns?

The researchers also use multiple data collection methods in their study. They collect quantitative data from each social media site, e.g comments, share, likes, fans/followers. After doing this they apply text mining and to discover patterns and further knowledge – and in this way get a deeper insight analyzing of how the selected pizza chains social media activities in practice.

References: 
Eyrich-Garg, K. (2011) Sheltered in Cyberspace? Computer use among the unsheltered "street" homeless, Computers in Human Behavior, 27(1), p.296-303
http://www.sciencedirect.com.focus.lib.kth.se/science/article/pii/S0747563210002505

Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building Theories from Case Study Research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532-550.

He, W., Zha, S. & Li, L. (2013) Social media competitive analysis and text mining: A case study in the pizza industry., International Journal of Information Management., 33(3), p.464-472
http://www.sciencedirect.com.focus.lib.kth.se/science/article/pii/S0268401213000030#