CIA 1: Assignment

Critical Review of Case Study Methodology

Ananya Agarwal

20224305

MPS136N- Qualitative Research Methods in Psychology

M.Sc. Clinical Psychology

Semester 1

1st September 2020

on The Inclusion Experience of Adolescent Girls with Emotional- Behavioural Disabilities”.

The authors of the study are Darcie Whitlow, Robyn Cooper and Michael Couvillon (2018).

The case study explores the Inclusion experiences of the middle school girls having emotional

behaviour disorders. The total number of participants in the case study are three girls, one

member of their family, one teacher and their paraprofessional (if assigned to them). The

methods used in this case study are Narrative Approach, Observations and Document Analysis.

The girls were selected by the process of purposive sampling. The consent of all the participants

were taken for the purpose of the case study research.

The participants were given pseudonyms for the purpose of anonymity. The three girls

were Rachel, Chelsie (School A) and Elizabeth (School B). Rachel was diagnosed with Autism.

Chelsie was diagnosed with Tourette’s Oppositional Defiant Disorder and ADHD. Elizabeth

was diagnosed with Autism with ADHD. All the three girls spent a considerable amount of

time in General Education (GED) Class and the rest of their time was spent in the special

education class with the special education teacher and the school social worker. The girls

reported to being subjected to bullying by the classmates, being ignored by the GED teachers

and difficulty in interacting with their peers. The teachers and the parents reported that these

girls showed issues with respect to personal boundaries. The parents of all three girls talked

about how each of these had some or the other issue with their biological mothers (Rachel was

adopted at the age of four, Chelsie lived with her grandmother since she was a baby and

Elizabeth’s mother was going through some cognitive decline.

The document analysis was by examining participants’ folders that contained their

school records, their functional behaviour assessments (FBA), their Individualised Education

Programme (IEP) and their behaviour intervention plans as proposed by their special education

teacher.
 Each of the documents were analysed, information through interviews and observations

were triangulated, interviews were cross checked by the participants and memos were

completed. After the findings were reported to ensure unbiased research, peer review was done.

The researchers proposed two solutions to facilitate inclusion:

1. Collaboration of the school social workers with workers outside of school to ensure that

the children with EBD are able to interact and function well in other setups too.

2. Provide interventions and facilitate conversations with the General Education teachers

to ensure that they have the necessary skills and training to make children with EBD

comfortable in their classrooms.

However, there were certain limitations to the study such as not including girls from different

backgrounds, race and ethnicities. The study would have some impact on transferability and

generalisability due to its small sample size. Certain factors that might have affect the response

of the participants were unknown to the researchers. Therefore, further research studies can

address these gaps and come up with a more comprehensive model to provide interventions

and facilitate smooth inclusion experiences of girls with EBD in schools and other places.

Q1. How did the author decide what village, town, factory, or institution should be

selected for the study?

The author decided the participants through the means of purposive sampling. The authors

wanted to keep the sample size small to ensure that they are able to analyse the information

better. The author quotes Yin (2009) to support their choice of methodology

“Case study methodology which usually has a small sample size is best used to explain

a phenomenon which is affecting the participants.”

be within the age of a middle school student, have an Individualised Education Programme

(IEP) with a goal in the area of behaviour with functional behaviour assessment (FBA) and a

current behaviour plan. Along with the girls, one of their parents, one of their teachers and their

paraprofessionals (if assigned to the girl) were interviewed. Therefore, in addition to three girls,

there was one parent each, one teacher and one paraprofessional contributing to the additional

data.

The district selected for the study was where the author had worked previously but had

no previous connection to the participants. Potential participants were identified through school

lists and then were contacted over phones to answer any queries for the case study.

Q2. Do you think the criteria were appropriate?

In a qualitative case study, the choice of the sample depends on the research purposes.

Yin (2003) recommends that before accessing research cases the researchers must set up

operational criteria for the purpose of their study, whereby they can decide whether or not the

candidates are perfect for their research study.

In this case, the researchers had specified the research criteria as middle school students,

having an IEP with FBAs, a goal in the behavioural area and a current plan. Therefore, the

focus of research was on recruiting girls. Therefore, it seems like the criteria for the selection

of the participants was appropriate.

Q3. Is it a "crucial" case for the theory?

The researchers aim to explore the inclusion experience of adolescent girls with

emotional behaviour disabilities in General Education Classes. The issues of girl students are
often not paid attention to with respect to the emotional- behavioural disorders. Their

disabilities are often mislabelled and misjudged as “teenage drama. There is limited research

in the area of gender variance with respect to the emotional behaviour conditions.” (N.A. Gage,

K.N. Joseph, K. Lunde, 2012)

This case study aims to address those research gaps. It does not view the girls with

emotional behavioural disorders in isolation, instead it aims to look at it in the General

Education settings where each of these girls are spending 58-93 percent of time in the GED

Class and rest of their school hours in the special education room.

Inclusion for children with special needs in school came up in the United States in

1990s. It is based on the concept that children with special needs can perform better

academically and behaviourally if they are exposed to the same cases as their peers. (C.

Samuels, 2019). Therefore, with inclusion there is a need to employ proper intervention

methodologies for children with EBD. However, the social workers apply the same

interventions on the girls that they apply to boys. The main reason for this is the underdiagnosis

of the girl students. Hence, in order to address and build proper intervention methods this study

is a crucial step in identifying what kind of interventions are required and what needs to be

done differently.

Q4. Can any generalizations be drawn from the case?

The authors note that the small sample size may cause some impact on transferability.

However, it is pertinent to note the nature of case studies. Case studies can be categorised as

intensive studies which aim to understand a phenomenon by asking the “why” and “how”

type of questions in relation to a phenomenon. They aim to generate data in a particular

context. Generalisability of the case studies is doubtful, it is not one of the strong suits of

qualitative research (Firestone, 1993 p. 16)

During the course of the study it was later seen that all three girls had Early Childhood

Trauma and dysfunctional family dynamics. All of them struggled with bullying. It is

important to note that the findings of the studies cannot be generalised when it comes to

suggesting the scope of intervention for girls with EBD. Since, all the three participants were

the girls growing in white households (one of the participants was adopted when she was four

but she has been raised by white parents) therefore, their experiences cannot be generalised to

girls with different ethnicities and races. The study can be generalised to the adolescent girls

coming from white households and facing EBD to some extent. Since these three participants

shared their issues about family trauma that they brought into their classroom space, it is safe

to note that students with EBD “act out” because they are not able to deal with their traumas

effectively as compared to children who do not have emotional behavioural disorders.

It can be taken as a starting point to identify what all areas can be covered when it

comes to understanding the issues of the girls with EBD. This study serves to provide us a

picture of what plays out in the general education classroom and what are experiences of girls

when it comes to understanding Inclusion in these spaces. It does serve to provide us a model

that can be used in any general education setting:

1. School social workers can work in collaboration with mental health workers outside

of school to help the girls with EBD gain interventions and help outside of the school

setting. This would help the girls be able to function better in outside settings and

might help them avoid bringing their traumas in the classroom.

2. The social workers can collaborate with mental health workers and help conduct

intervention programmes for the General Education teachers. The General Education

Teachers were reported to not interact with the students having EBD inside

classrooms or outside of schools. An assumption for the same could be that they are
 not equipped to deal with the students having EBD. Therefore, providing training

sessions for the General Education Teachers might help in reducing some of the

problems that the students with EBD face in their classrooms and might not make

GED add to their already existing issues.

Q5. How does the author define and limit the unit for study?

The unit of study is the sample size and the participants chosen for the study. Since

the study focuses on the Emotional Behavioural Development of Adolescent Girls, the

participants for this study are girls aged between 12 to 16 years of age. Each of the

participants were required to have Individualised Education Programme (IEP) with a goal in

the area of behaviour with functional behaviour assessment (FBA) and a current behaviour

plan. The participants attended one of the schools in Central United States of America.

Q6. Do you see any significant limitations or important knowledge that can only be

produced using different research approaches?

The two major limitations of this case study research: not knowing about the events outside the

scope of research and the impact of transferability. The research uses interview methods,

observations and document analysis to collect data. However, the researchers note that there

might be factors affecting the response of the participants that might be unknown to the

researchers. Some of these issues can be the timings of the interview, the rapport between the

interviewer and the participant, puberty related issues might be an additional factor affecting

the response of the participants.

There is also issue of generalising the results. The results cannot be generalised to a

larger population. A better approach to this could have been using questionnaires to look at the

experience of a larger population in the sample and then conducting case studies on some of
them for the purpose of more generalisability. A similar approach was used in a case study by

Wan Z. wherein the researcher was trying to explore the experiences of international students

to acculturate themselves to Chinese higher learning context. The researcher used

questionnaires for 120- students by the means of purposive sampling and they sampled 12

international students based on the responses. This selection was based on the responses and

also the diverse range of courses that each of these participants were pursuing.

The research study on the adolescent girls with EBD is restricted to the town in middle

United States, the experiences of girls living in other parts of the United States might be

differet. Thus, in order to ensure generalisability of the study, the participants should have been

from the different parts of the country.

The research study focuses on the inclusion experiences of girls at school. However, it

would not be right to assume that the girls face some kind of inclusion issues in spaces outside

of school. Therefore, there is a need to view inclusion issues from a wider lens where we are

talking about all major aspects of the girls’ lives and not just schools.

Q7. What are your ethical considerations about the study?

The ethical code of conduct was followed by the researchers. The participants were

briefed about the study over phone calls and emails. They were provided with consent forms

which detailed what was supposed to happen in the study. Since the study focused on

adolescent girls and as per the APA ethics, minors cannot consent for themselves, their parents

were asked to provide consent on their behalf.

Anonymity of the participants was maintained. Each girl was given a pseudonym for

the course of the study. It was ensured by the researchers that the identity of the participants

remain confidential.

Accuracy of the data was ensured by triangulation; member checks and participants
were made to read their interviews. This was done to report any inaccuracies in the data and to

correct them before reporting the findings. Audit trails and peer review of the interview and

the research findings was done to ensure that the data does not seem to be affected by the

researchers’ biases. This was done to avoid biases and misinterpretation of facts.

Multiple relationships with the participants were avoided. The participants were

selected from the school district where the lead author had previously worked but they had no

previous relationships with the participants. This was done to avoid the overlap of roles and to

be able to provide an honest account of the participants’ experiences. (“Ethical Principles of

Psychologists and Code of Conduct”, 2017)

Q8. Consider how a qualitative study can contribute to your understanding of the

research issue?

Qualitative study is helpful in understanding the perspectives of multiple stakeholders

at once. In case of this study, qualitative research gives us an in-depth insight into the

perspectives of the adolescent girls, their families and their teachers. Quantitative research

would not have provided us such detailed analysis. However, qualitative research helps us to

understand all these multiple perspectives and for clarifying the processes that take place at

homes, schools and the classrooms. (Firestone, 1993).

The thematic analysis of the interview helps to get a clear understanding of the

participants’ responses and the discussions of the study. The interview uses within case analysis

method. The creation of themes by the researchers after going through the transcripts builds

our understanding of the research issue and their findings.

The other methods employed by the researchers such as observation helps us in

verifying the teachers’ responses. This helps us get a first hand account of what happens to the

participant in their real setting. This assists us further in understanding the research findings
through the process of triangulation. All the findings are triangulated to ensure accuracy.

Such kind of detailed and individual experiences are not possible in other forms of

research. When we talk about understanding people’s experiences with some sort of a disorder

qualitative research methods help to provide us a detailed subjective experience that are

personal to each individual. In quantitative research people’s experiences are reduced to

numbers. (L. Ayres, K.Kavanaugh, K. A. Knafl, 2003)

Q9. Describe the overall purpose of conducting a qualitative study.

The purpose of qualitative research is to built one’s own understanding for a research

topic and to provide an in-depth analysis to a research question. The qualitative research

methods are known for dividing the research topics and findings into rich themes and not just

reducing them numbers and generalised statements. (J.A. Smith, R. Harre & L.V. Lagenhove,

1995)

Qualitative research does not generalise definitions since the beginning of the research.

For qualitative researchers, the research topic derives its meaning from the participants’

responses. Qualitative research provides us with responses and solutions to the research

problem. Therefore, for the purpose of suggesting a solution, qualitative research approach

seems to be appropriate as it has the potential to change the social systems and build policies

that can improve the experiences of people.

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