The qualitative embedded case study method: Exploring and refining gerontological concepts via qualitative research with older people
Affiliation.
- 1 Norman and Honey Schipper Chair in Gerontological Social Work, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, Canada; Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute, Toronto, Canada. Electronic address: [email protected].
- PMID: 37268388
- DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2023.101138
This article argues that a tailored version of the qualitative embedded case study method can be used to build strong conceptual and inclusive insights from qualitative research with older people, and, in doing so, advance theoretical scholarship in social and critical gerontology. Gerontology has often been described as "data-rich and theory-poor" (Birren & Bengtson, 1988). It is a field which draws heavily on post-positivist traditions of quantitative research and notions of prediction, generalization, and statistical significance. While critical qualitative approaches have gained ground through interdisciplinary scholarship in the social sciences and humanities, few attempts have been made to articulate the relationship between research questions designed to understand older people's experiences and concept- or theory-building in gerontology. This piece makes a case for engaging with the theoretical/methodological interface by drawing on an evolving approach entitled the qualitative embedded case study, as it was used in three qualitative studies on the concepts of frailty, (im)mobility, and precarity. It suggests this is an evolving approach with the potential to develop conceptually sound, meaningful research from older people's experiences, including diverse, underrepresented, and marginalized groups, and to draw on these insights to direct change.
Keywords: Critical gerontology; Diversity; Inclusion; Qualitative methodology; Structure; Theory.
Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Inc.
- Geriatrics*
- Qualitative Research
- Research Design
IMAGES