The DOI matches its Crossref record; 70 of the 70 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Methodology or method? A critical review of qualitative case study reports
Open accessAbstract
Despite on-going debate about credibility, and reported limitations in comparison to other approaches, case study is an increasingly popular approach among qualitative researchers. We critically analysed the methodological descriptions of published case studies. Three high-impact qualitative methods journals were searched to locate case studies published in the past 5 years; 34 were selected for analysis. Articles were categorized as health and health services (n=12), social sciences and anthropology (n=7), or methods (n=15) case studies. The articles were reviewed using an adapted version of established criteria to determine whether adequate methodological justification was present, and if study aims, methods, and reported findings were consistent with a qualitative case study approach. Findings were grouped into five themes outlining key methodological issues: case study methodology or method, case of something particular and case selection, contextually bound case study, researcher and case interactions and triangulation, and study design inconsistent with methodology reported. Improved reporting of case studies by qualitative researchers will advance the methodology for the benefit of researchers and practitioners.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Case Study Research: Design and Methods
Chaiklin, H. (1991) · The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease · doi:10.1097/00005053-199102000-00025 · Cited by 39,535
Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches
Lewis, S. (2015) · Health Promotion Practice · doi:10.1177/1524839915580941 · Cited by 22,105
(2009) · Cited by 21,330
Building Theories from Case Study Research
Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989) · The Academy of Management Review · doi:10.2307/258557 · Cited by 17,455
The Art of Case Study Research
Johnson, K. E., & Stake, R. E. (1996) · The Modern Language Journal · doi:10.2307/329758 · Cited by 15,826
Building theories from case study research
Eisenhardt, K. M. (2009) · STUDI ORGANIZZATIVI · doi:10.3280/so2008-002004 · Cited by 11,299
A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies
Grant, M. J., & Booth, A. (2009) · Health Information & Libraries Journal · doi:10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x · Cited by 10,817
(1993) · Cited by 7,856
(2011) · Cited by 7,157
Męcfal, S. (2012) · University of Lodz Repository (University of Łódź) · Cited by 6,617
Cited by
Theme development in qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis
Vaismoradi, M., Jones, J., Turunen, H., & Snelgrove, S. (2016) · Journal of Nursing Education and Practice · doi:10.5430/jnep.v6n5p100 · Cited by 1,994
Case study research for better evaluations of complex interventions: rationale and challenges
Paparini, S., Green, J., Papoutsi, C., Murdoch, J., Petticrew, M., Greenhalgh, T., Hanckel, B., & Shaw, S. (2020) · BMC Medicine · doi:10.1186/s12916-020-01777-6 · Cited by 175
Paparini, S., Papoutsi, C., Murdoch, J., Green, J., Petticrew, M., Greenhalgh, T., & Shaw, S. E. (2021) · BMC Medical Research Methodology · doi:10.1186/s12874-021-01418-3 · Cited by 131
An Operational Approach to Agroecology-Based Local Agri-Food Systems
López-García, D., & González de Molina, M. (2021) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su13158443 · Cited by 43
Traumatic residue, mediated remembering and video evidence of sexual violence: A case study
Regehr, C., Regehr, K., & Birze, A. (2022) · International Journal of Law and Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2022.101778 · Cited by 6
Metadata
- Authors
- Hyett, N., Kenny, A., & Dickson-Swift, V.
- Venue
- International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2014-01
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 23606-23606
- ISSN
- 1748-2623 (ISSN-L)
- 1748-2631
- OpenAlex
- W2113258979
- Cited by
- 608
- References
- 70
- FWCI
- 181.08
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Methodology or method? A critical review of qualitative case study reports. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.3402/qhw.v9.23606
- The paper
- Hyett, N., Kenny, A., & Dickson-Swift, V. (2014). Methodology or method? A critical review of qualitative case study reports. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being. https://doi.org/10.3402/qhw.v9.23606
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.