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This hands-on, interactive one-week course enables you to develop, consolidate and implement the comparative research design that best meets your needs, from the early stages to its completion: thinking comparatively (‘why compare’?), casing (‘what are my cases?’), case selection strategies (‘which cases and how many?’), data collection strategies and methods, data management and data analysis (qualitative, comparative and quantitative options).
- On day 1, the course first addresses important upstream issues on ‘why compare’, i.e. what is/are the added value(s) of comparison? We will also locate CRDs vis-à-vis other research designs and will provide a bird’s eye view of all major arbitrations to be made.
- On day 2, we’ll turn to ‘step 1’ operations such as the formulation of the research question(s) and hypotheses (if applicable), the adequate use of concepts, the number of cases one will be able to manage, and core arbitrations such as within-system or cross-system case selection.
- On Day 3, we will unpack the crucial operation of ‘casing’ (‘what is a case?’), which raises core issues such as depth v/s breadth, cross-case diversity and comparability of cases. Then we’ll systematically examine all the main options for the core ‘step 2’ set of operations: case selection, starting with basic strategies, from very small N to very large N.
- On Day 4, we will turn to more advanced case selection strategies, in particular taking into consideration issues of time/sequence and of multilevel/nested phenomena, i.e. bringing in ‘case complexity’. Then we’ll move on to hands-on ‘tricks of the trade’ for systematically and rigorously collecting and managing comparative data (‘step 3’ and ‘step 4’).
- Finally, on Day 5, we’ll examine different ways to engage in comparative data analysis (‘step 5’): qualitative (case-oriented) tools, QCA and other cross-case analysis tools, and quantitative/statistical tools. We’ll also touch upon the potential of mixed- or multi-method comparative designs, with a specific focus on sequencing QCA with single case studies.
The course is interactive, with an alternation of lecture-based sessions (always open to questions/discussion), short presentations by participants, discussions in sub-groups followed by de-brief in plenary, etc..
The instructor also guarantees at least one 1 to 1 appointment with each participant. The goal is to provide individualised guidance to each and every participant.
