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Multiple Case Study Analysis Essay

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Summary
This is an education research paper that explores the qualitative research method known as Multiple Case Study Analysis. It will look at design, implementation, and analysis. It will further touch on what is meant by a case study in itself.

Introduction
As asserted by Stake (2006), “The multicase study is a special effort to examine something having lots of cases, parts, or members” (p. vi), which by the study of those parts, is able to then better understand the something as a whole, and the ways in which it functions across different scenarios. In other words, it attempts to explore and understand a specific issue or phenomenon, within its context, by examining the individual parts, or cases, which make it up. Stake …show more content…

If the intended methodological design is a qualitative multiple case study, then each case must be known completely, which leaves little attention to the quintain. This forced split of the research analyst’s attention is what Stake (2006) describes as the “case-quintain dilemma” (p. 1).
Single Case Studies Developing theory from case studies is a research scheme that involves the utilization of multiple cases in an effort to create notional theories and proposals from case-based empirical evidence (Eisenhardt, 1989), and since a multiple case study is basically made up of various individual case studies, the understanding of basic case study methodology is essential. Creswell (1998) describes a case study as a qualitative research method in which the researcher explores a bounded system (what Stake refers to as the quintain), through thorough detailed data collection over a period of time, involving various collection sources, which results in the materialization of case-based theses and reports. Stake (2006) states that these processes are so involved, that for every hour a researcher spends collecting data, he needs an additional six hours for things such as recording, describing, preparing, reflecting, and the like. In his book, Stake (2006) provides a diagramed outline for gathering

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