4.2 The Qualitative Case Study Approach
The qualitative case study approach employed in this research was to explore the resource of meaning-making for disciplinary identities construction, including university and discipline oriented cultures and conventions and individual learning experiences.It underpinned and illuminated the ways in which Chinese humanities students in different years performed and negotiateed their disciplinary identities in the semiosis of group membership affiliation, which mediates the relation between individual and context.Ideally, the qualitative case study approach is a useful tool to investigate a bounded system of a particular phenomenon within a given context and to understand a case from multiple variables of social units (Creswell, 2009; Duff, 2008; Merriam, 2009; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Stake, 1995; Yin, 2014).It also allows a qualitative researcher to capture and interpret the meaning of the rich data emerged from real-world events, to explore in depth ‘the uniqueness and complexity of the case, its embeddedness and interaction with its contexts’ (Stake, 1995, p.16), and to understand how people make sense of the world and behave in the world.
The nature of the qualitative case study approach is described as particularistic, interpretive, descriptive and heuristic (cf., Creswell, 2009; Duff, 2008; Merriam, 2009; Stake, 1995; Yin, 2014).In other words, a qualitative case study deals with one single individual case in a particular context, answering ‘how’ and ‘why’ research questions, providing a thick description of the case, and engaging the readers’ experiential understanding of the case.A qualitative case study researcher may use an inductive process to adequately interpret a phenomenon due to the lack of (existing) theory.The researcher will thus establish or develop hypotheses, concepts or theories through gathering data from documents, observations, interviews or video recordings.
The qualitative case study method receives criticism on issues such as the lack of generalisability, the lack of rigour, the human interpreter instrument, and unmanageable level of effort.It is also criticised due to its research interest on one single instance.Yet some researchers (e.g., Merriam, 2009; Yin, 2014) offer a defence that the real emphasis of qualitative case studies lies on a particularistic feature, which enables a qualitative research to expand and generalise theoretical propositions rather than to interfere with probabilities like experimental research does.As such, a particular case situated within a single context can generate a variety of events of facts, as well as address the complexity of the phenomenon that cannot be covered by the quantitative research.No doubt, insights drawn from the thick description of data and in-depth findings will be strongly grounded in reality and vicariously transferred into the readers’ reflection of their own similar situations.
Another key criticism is related to the inherent subjectivity of the qualitative interpretation lacking rigour, as it may be limited to a researcher’s sensitivity and ability.Arguably, the qualitative case study is human instrument-oriented (like many other research strategies); its primary goal is to explore and understand the differences in the complexity of social practice ‘ideologically, epistemologically, methodologically—and most importantly, humanly’ (Shields, 2007, p.13).It is difficult to avoid the inherent characteristic of subjectivity in qualitative case study methodology.Notwithstanding, the method of ‘triangulation’, in fact, is widely used in the qualitative case study methodology to minimise subjective involvement in data collection.Meanwhile, a trained qualitative researcher can flexibly identify and clarify data, probe unexpected responses, and double-check the accuracy of data analysis with the participants.If we take these philosophical considerations into account, the purposeful selection of a case will guide and manage a specific research case within reasonable scope.