Major Advantages And Disadvantages Of Case Study Methods

A case study is an intensive type of research that involves a process in which detailed information is collected

Questionnaire is set of questions which could be written or multiple choice question given to the individuals or groups to find the factual information.

A case study is “a method of analysis and a specific research design for examining a problem” (University of Southern California, 2010). It can be used to analyze a person, place, event, or other subjects in order to help discover mitigating issues, misconceptions, failures, trends, or recommendations (USC, 2010). Case studies will be used to gain a better understanding of situations and topics to help others make better policies, procedures, and decisions (USC, 2010).

Questionnaires are “a series of questions asked to individuals to obtain statistically useful information about a given topic” (Bryant, L, 2014). There are different types of questionnaires that include face to face, phone, post and online.

For the purpose of this study, the researcher intends to use a cross-sectional research design where all the data will be collected at the same time. The distribution of the research questionnaires will take place over a time period of two weeks where the main data will be collected from the respondents.

Case studies are one of the first types of research to be used in the qualitative methodology and repeating the study several times will lead to the increased reliability of the study (Starman, 2013). This methodology is appropriate because it will allow for data collection results to be generalized based on the theoretical propositions and not the population (Harrison et al. 2017).

A questionnaire is research which involves a number of different questions to gather information from the people who are filling it in. Questionnaires are designed as a way to find out what people are thinking. An advantage of questionnaires is that it is very practical because it is quick to collect information from the people filling out the questionnaire. Another advantage of questionnaires is that the same questions is asked to everyone filling the questionnaire out so easy to sum up. The final advantage to questionnaires is that large information can be collected. There are also some disadvantages to questionnaires which is that there is no way of telling how much though someone who is filling the questionnaire out has put it. Another disadvantage is that the person filling it out may forget what has happened to fill it out so it won’t be reliable. The final disadvantage to questionnaires is that there is no way to tell how truthful a respondent is being.

There are a number of methods of collecting data, some of them are – questionnaire, surveys, checklists, interviews, observations, focus group etc (Cordray, 1986; Einhorn and Hogarth, 1986).

“Problems researched with the use of appropriate methods greatly enhance the value of the research.” (Sekaran, 2003) Data can be collected through interviews, questionnaires, observations, and through other techniques, like projective tests. In even more detail, interviews can be conducted in a variety of different ways such as over the phone, through the computer, interviews through the electronic media, and face-to-face. Questionnaires can be conducted personally or administered electronically. “Interviewing, administering questionnaires, and observing people and phenomena are the three main data collection methods in survey research.” (Sekaran, 2003) As stated before, data can be collected in many different ways; however the value of the research is only greatly enhanced when personal opinions and bias is left out of the collection of data.

According to O’Sullivan, Rassel, and Berner (2008), “Questionnaire writing involves deciding what variables to measure; writing questions that accurately and adequately measure the variables; assembling the questions in a logical order on a

In case study research, an investigator studies an individual or small group of individuals with an unusual condition or situation. Case studies are typically clinical in scope. The investigator (often a clinical sociologist) sometimes uses self‐report measures to acquire quantifiable data on the subject. A comprehensive case study, including a long‐term follow‐up, can last months or years.

The strength of questionnaires is it can give an insight into respondent’s thoughts and opinions and also cost efficient as it is inexpensive.

My proposed research approach is case study, because this kind of approach works best when I want to investigate my research issue—perspectives about the usage of mobile devices—in depth. In other words, a certain group of people from among all this type of students will help me most to understand my research issue. My exploration might provide me a better understanding through analysis and comparison on this certain issue.

I will use a few different methods. One method is by using the Problem Classification Coding Scheme (CCS). The CCS is a process to test for issues in the question answering processes. It is a series of 28 questions that go through each stage of answering a survey question. It tests to see if there are any issues in any of the states of answering a question (Schaeffer and Dykema, 2011:919). Another method is to the Question Understanding Aid (QUAID). QUAID is a mechanism to test for issues in wording of a survey question, such as vague words or question length or even grammatical issues. The goal of QUAID is to ensure that each question is grammatically correct, and easy for the respondent to comprehend (Schaeffer and Dykema, 2011, 921). A third method and last method is to use cognitive interviews. Cognitive interviews are small group discussions to talk about issues or topics to help in the process of writing survey questions and making the survey process go quicker (BCB, 2014:434). All three methods will be used for questionnaire improvement. For the cognitive interviews, two interviews were done with people I knew. A summary about the people interviewed is presented in Table 1.

In survey method research, participants answer questions administered through interviews or questionnaires. After participants answer the questions, researchers describe the responses given. In order for the survey to be both reliable and valid it is important that the questions are constructed properly. Questions should be written so they are clear and easy to comprehend.