The Case Study Paradox
Case studies have existed as long as recorded history. Much of what is known about the empirical world has been produced by case study research, and many of the classics in a long range of disciplines are case studies, including in psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, education, economics, political science, management, geography, biology, and medical science. Half of all articles in the top political science journals use case studies, for instance. But there is a paradox here, as argued by Oxford professor Bent Flyvbjerg. At the same time that case studies are extensively used and have produced canonical works, one may observe that the case study is generally held in low regard, or is simply ignored, within the academy. Statistics on courses offered in universities confirm this. It has been argued that the case study paradox exists because the case study is widely misunderstood as a research method. Flyvbjerg argues that by clearing the misunderstandings about the case study, the case study paradox may be resolved.
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Famous quotes containing the words case, study and/or paradox:
“Consumer wants can have bizarre, frivolous, or even immoral origins, and an admirable case can still be made for a society that seeks to satisfy them. But the case cannot stand if it is the process of satisfying wants that creates the wants.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“To study the stars upon the wide, boundless sea, is divine as it was to the Chaldean Magi, who observed their revolutions from the plains.”
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“A good aphorism is too hard for the teeth of time and is not eaten up by all the centuries, even though it serves as food for every age: hence it is the greatest paradox in literature, the imperishable in the midst of change, the nourishment which—like salt—is always prized, but which never loses its savor as salt does.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)