Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research

Qualitative Inquiry - Tập 12 Số 2 - Trang 219-245 - 2006
Bent Flyvbjerg1,2,3,4,5
1Aalborg Universitet
2Aalborg University, Denmark
3An Anatomy of Ambition (Cambridge University
4Department of Development and Planning at Aalborg University, Denmark.
5University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-Berkeley, and Harvard University.

Tóm tắt

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.

Từ khóa


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Qualitative Inquiry

Tập 12 Số 2

219-245

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