The last week's theme of the course was Qualitative and case study research, where we - yes, talked about qualitative studies, and case studies. As always - interesting discussions sparked during the two seminars this week. We reviewed our selected papers and talked about the vast number of qualitative methods one can use and the benefits/drawbacks of them, and some examples of how to use them properly.
Few students (four or five) showed up to the second seminar, unfortunately - but looking on the bright side of it, we got more time to dissect our selected papers to find out whether they were actually case studies or not. Truth to be told, we all had a hard time being able to define what actually constitutes case studies, and agreed that the wiki definition was a bit off. It seemed to say all and nothing at the same time, and I unfortunately can't say I fully understand the difference of a case study with a study similar to a case study.
What can be said, is that you, in case studies, study a topic, person, whatever - in a holistical sense, meaning you look at the whole well-defined area, instead of just fractions or parts of it, which is common in a lot of research. We also learned that case studies can be very convenient if you lack resources or time (yes, I'm looking at you, master thesis). Confusions aside, I did find the seminars of last week interesting - and the course in whole as well.
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