On Case studies
“Within psychology a case study refers to the in-depth study of a particular situation rather than a
general statistical analysis. It is a method to narrow down a very broad topic of research into one
single case, i.e., a person, setting, situation or event. For example, the broad topic of urban
environmental quality may be studied in one particular neighborhood where the municipality has
recently installed garbage bins to combat littering. Rather than employing a strict protocol and closeended
questions to study a limited number of variables, case study methods involve an exploratory,
qualitative examination of a single situation or event: a case. Qualitative research uses words or
other non-numerical indicators (such s images or drawings) as data. The main purpose of case studies
and other types of qualitative research is to explore and understand the meaning that individuals or
groups ascribe to a social or human phenomenon. In a case study, people or events are studied in
their own context, within naturally occurring settings, such as the home, play fields, the university
and the street. These settings are “open systems” where conditions are continuously affected by
interactions with the social, physical, historical and cultural context to give rise to process of ongoing
change. “
(Steg, van den berg, and De Groot, 2012, pp 9-10)