WRITING A CASE-STUDY RESEARCH PAPER FOR MIN 690
Northeastern
Seminary (
*First
and foremost, you must ask good questions—open-ended questions that encourage
people to talk about their experiences. Exercise
caution—move people incrementally from the comfortable to the
uncomfortable. You could be asking
questions about delicate matters. Work
at building trust among the people you interview. For example, if you work with a church or
mission-type organization with an outreach among victims in the sex industry,
you would not begin a study with the question, “How did you get started in
prostitution?” without first establishing a relationship. Besides, the interviewer would likely best be
a woman.
*To
carry out a case study, you need to sharpen your observational skills. You don’t need special skills to see the
ordinary. Anybody can record the
obvious. However, as a researcher you
must move beyond the obvious toward perceptive wisdom. This requires patience and
concentration. According to Valerie J. Janesick, becoming a qualitative researcher requires
awakening one’s “artistic intelligence.”
Stemming from Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences,
“artistic intelligence” requires the researcher to “look for the whole,” to
discern the larger meaning above the parts.
For example, if you are studying a church, you could easily make
observations about the obvious. You
could record attendance, building dimensions, racial composition and economic
data about the membership, etc. Yet
statistics by themselves do not impart wisdom.
You must frame this data on a larger narrative that moves your readers
into a vicarious experience of the unique fellowship of a particular
congregation. Mundane observation merely
records what anyone can see. The skilled
observer spends enough time immersed in the data to discern the larger meaning
of events.
*You
must have the skills and judgment to collect quality data. You do not want to collect all the data you
possibly can—you will be inundated with irrelevant material. Thus you must plan the data collection
process carefully, so that the data collection lines up with your research
questions. What kind of data do you need
to collect? Some projects require extensive
library research, such as biblical exegesis.
Others demand extended time in the field, such as case studies of
churches, educational settings, etc. You
may need to interview people to produce the kind of data you need. Take careful thought regarding how you
structure the data collection—your collection procedures determine your data
quality! Plan your data collection
carefully! For further reading on field
research see Gerhard Lang, A Practical
Guide to Research Methods, 6th ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1998). Examine yourself to determine whether you are
the right person for your anticipated project.
Suppose you want to design a strategic plan for planting a new church
among Asian immigrants in
*What
kind of data do you need for your project?
How will you collect that data?
Which people can provide that data?
You cannot collect all the data out there. You must establish selection criteria for
your data collection. Do you need
information from people? How will you
choose those people? Will you survey
them with a questionnaire? Or will you
develop a case study by interviewing them?
A case study requires getting to know a few people well. You will need to collect in-depth information
from them. You must select the best
people who can provide a rich field of information. Aim for a ‘thick description’ of the
situation you portray through your research artistry. For example, for a case study that involves
Asian immigrants, you will need to establish relationships with the people you
select for the data collection. You must
get to know them over a significant amount of time, earn their trust, and glean
in-depth information about their lives as related to the project
objectives. You cannot get this kind of
information through a questionnaire administered through the mail. For putting together a case study, you need
data that can be reconstructed into a ‘story.’
Of course you aren’t writing a novel.
However, you are reconstructing a living characteristic of our
world. You cannot get into ‘lived experience’
with facts and figures alone. Rather,
you must get to know real, living people.
Only people can transmit ‘lived experience,’ and you can collect their
experiences through relationships. You
must actually get to know people and gain knowledge of their world. You must listen to their stories as they are
related to your research questions. Your
purposes must guide the data collection.
*For
your ‘research journal’—think about yourself as a
researcher—as someone who intrudes into the lives of the people you study. What can you do to facilitate entry into
their lives—with integrity? How can you
make the experience more agreeable?
Reflect in your journal about your subject-selection criteria. How will you choose the people you will
study? How can you determine whether
these people will provide the data you need?
A case study presumes a considerable degree of relational skill on your
part. Can you initiate and maintain the
kind of relationships that will elicit the data you need? How will you initiate these relationships? How will you build up mutual trust and
respect? If you plan to work in a
high-risk environment, such as a correctional institution or a high-crime urban
neighborhood, how will you protect yourself from possible harm? Can you protect confidential
information? How can you deal with
disruption (e.g. someone you have been interviewing suddenly refuses to
cooperate)? How will you respond to
conflict with the people you interview?
Remember—these are people who must be respected.
*The
people you study are not obliged to help you with your research project. If you raise yourself above them, you risk
the destruction of the relationships you need for your data. You cannot force or bribe your way into their
lives. Ask yourself—why should these
people share their lives with you? What
can you do to nourish these relationships?
How can you bring authenticity into the picture? Once you select the people you will
interview, reflect on the place where you will have these conversations. Select a place free from distractions, where
your subjects will have privacy. Avoid
places where third parties can overhear the interviews.
*While
you may want to do more than read the questions, you should plan some
strictures into the face-to-face interviews to stay on track. Certainly you must build some planning for
these conversations. Do not let your interviewees
determine the structure! You—the
researcher—must bring the structure to the table. You must orient the discussion with a view
toward data collection for answering your research questions. Consider the method for recording the
data—pen and paper? Digital
recorder? Memory? Notebook computer? Cassette tape recorder (there are a few still
around)? Of course, you must never
record interviews without prior permission of your interviewees. You must maintain the strict integrity of
your research methods. Reflect on how
these methods impact—or even interfere with—the interview process. Perhaps you might do better if you record the
conversations in your memory—then get busy with your journal after each
interview session. If you choose to
record the interview with your memory and then write down the data in your
journal, you must not allow a significant amount of time to elapse. Rather, you must record your thoughts as soon
as possible. Otherwise—you will get some of the details wrong. This will impair the validity of your study
and perhaps offend your interviewees.
*Reflect
in your research journal about the credibility of your interviewees. Reflect also on your own credibility—your
integrity—as an interviewer. Have you
done your best to select honest people—and the most likely people—to provide
both the kind of data you need as well as accurate data? Stand back and look at the research process
both in terms of the individual components, the people involved, and the
research project as a whole. Ask whether
the effort is indeed fetching the right kind of data. Reflect on the timing of the project. As a researcher, where do you fit into the
‘big picture’? To this point, your
project stands in the center of the picture.
However—for the people you choose to interview—the project is
peripheral. Did your research project
come along at an optimum time to collect the data, both in terms of historical
time and the ‘time in life’ of each interviewee? Did you choose an interviewee for whom the
project came at the ‘worst possible time’?
*Have
you chosen a research project that occurs at a good time, historically
speaking? For example, if you are
developing a strategic plan for economic empowerment ministry among low-income
urban African American families, does your project coincide with a major
economic recession? What ‘outside
factors’ might be inadvertently affecting the results of your study? What factors might you not be considering
that significantly impact your project?
Reflect on the fact that your selection of a subject for study places
special emphasis on the matter. Your
research interrupts the normal flow of life.
The ‘normal life’ of your interviewees probably does not include
researchers. By conducting a research
project, you are ‘stepping into the stream of life.’ So reflect in your journal again—at what
point in the stream are you entering with your project? Could you have begun at a more optimal point? Of course, you may have had little choice
with this project. But your reflection
on this point may result in a more astute research plan.
*Make
certain that the people you select for interviews understand the purpose of the
research project. Be completely open
with them. Secure their cooperation only
if they understand how the data will be used.
Renounce any hidden measures or underhanded approaches. You are a researcher, not a con artist. Set a time limit for the interviews and
adhere to that limit. Do not take any
more of your interviewees’ time than they are willing to give. Be gracious to your interviewees and treat
them with respect. Provide them with
contact information, perhaps a cell phone number. Exercise discretion about giving out contact
information, especially your street address, when dealing with sensitive
issues. Of course you do not want this
information to be distributed to ‘undesirable elements.’ When you collect the data, think of the way
you will sort or ‘code’ the data. Will
you put the data in categories, arrange data in a chart, or will you weave the
data into a narrative? If you use
graphics, be careful not to get carried away with the graphical design and
distort the data as a consequence.
*Be
especially wary when you see statistics cited in a resource. Also exercise caution when you cite statistics
in your own document. What kind of
quantitative data do you have? What is
the reality behind the statistics? Most
of you are familiar with the statistical data reported by churches. Morning worship attendance, membership,
amount of money raised for all purposes. These bits of information are important for
the stories of these churches. They
represent important, hard-data aspects of the realities of these churches. But the hard data does not tell the entire
story. You cannot stretch the interpretation
beyond what the hard data measures, yet you cannot rely on data alone. You must provide a framework—a narrative—that
orders the data into a coherent, organized story. Few things bear as much weight on your
credibility as the quality of your data.
Next in line comes the interpretation of your data. What kind of light do you place on your
data? What framework of understanding do
you put up? What lens do you set up so
that viewers can see your data? Thus we
must be wary of imposing a theory on the data we collect. This can happen when we have not spent enough
time reflecting on what we as researchers bring to the table for the research
task. This artificial imposition often
happens when we make observations at a superficial level. Some people cannot see beyond the
obvious. The trained, skillful observer
works at getting beyond this point. We
must move beyond simply recording information toward analyzing, synthesizing
and evaluating data.
*In
qualitative research, theory does not come to the table at the beginning.
Rather—as this research is inductive in nature—theory emerges from the
study itself. Thus you need to keep
a reflective research journal as a mirror to see more than simply the
parts. You must grasp the way the data
fits together as a whole. You will not
be able to see this until you are well along in the data collection
process. To inductively pick up theory,
you must spend some time living with the
study. A good theory should be
tested by its explanatory power—its ability to explain—to connect—to give rise
to a ‘big picture’ that convinces readers of its sensibility. This theory—once it comes to light—should become
transparent to those who read your project.
The theory should convince through the support of substantial
evidence.
Page Last Modified
25 October 2005