Five misunderstandings about case-study research
Five misunderstandings about case-study research
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DOI：
10.1177/1077800405284363
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发表时间：
2006-04-01
影响因子：
2
通讯作者：
Flyvbjerg, B
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Flyvbjerg, B
本文分析了人们对案例研究的五个常见误解：（a）理论知识比实践知识更有价值;（B）不能从单个案例中概括，因此单个案例研究不能促进科学发展;（c）案例研究最适合于提出假设，而其他方法更适合于检验假设和建立理论;（d）案例研究偏向于核查;（e）往往难以总结具体的案例研究。本文对这些误解逐一进行了解释和纠正，最后得出库恩的观点：没有大量执行透彻的案例研究的科学学科是没有系统生产范例的学科，没有范例的学科是无效的学科。社会科学可以通过执行更多的好的案例研究而得到加强。
This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.