Case Studies

Authors like to refer to Stephen North. I wish I could act like I know who he is, but I don’t. In researching him, I saw that he looks a lot like Dr. Drew from Celebrity Rehab on VH1. Anyway…

Verrry interesting. So, the author’s perception is that in many cases writing a case study seems not to be about the reality of what was observed, but more…the perception of reality the observer wants the readers to see. Interesting. What I’m picking up on here is that, possibly, what you read in a case study is definitely biased and riddled with cultural perceptions and judgments. (133-134) So are they stories or case studies then?

But what these case studies are all about is the writing. The writer’s perception can and will get in the way of what was actually observed. Like Julie said Thursday, there’s no way humans can observe without their own cultural discourse creating some type of bias in assumption why their subject is doing something in a certain way…what they referred to as moral judgments (148). Most of us did that, even if we were conscious of trying not to, during our practice observations in class.

I was wondering how much information to include in the narrative. KS discusses the fact that the researchers could, and possibly should have included the perception of their subject (148) in order to get the full account of something observed that may need to be clarified. I suppose this is also a way to not fill gaps in the observation with judgments.

The LA reading has really helped clarify the way the observation should be written up…I felt lost leaving class…I knew how to observe, but now I have to do it again and this time, make it look good on paper. There’s a lot of information to include, but like I mentioned in my last blog, I needed this to clarify information from the research design course. Types of studies are thrown at you with no real explanation…just what you needed to know to do well on the tests. While I’m all for testing, there’s something to be said for getting there and doing it to better grasp understanding.