The advantage of case law is that it can provide detailed, comprehensive and in-depth information for the problems studied. It can explain in detail the causes of the emergence, development and change of some individual psychology and behavior, and help researchers to obtain some hypotheses. It plays an important role in modern psychology to study children's psychological development by case method.
The advantages of case law are as follows:
1, which can completely contain the case information.
Case study can reveal many variables that may be ignored or specifically excluded in the experiment because it records the historical information and realistic performance of the case in detail. Therefore, it can find the potential variables that may lead to some specific results, thus prompting the hypothesis for further research.
2. "Rule exceptions" can be proved or discovered.
Case studies can be used to prove a "rule exception". As long as a negative evidence and a counterexample are provided, it can be proved that the so-called universal "law" of behavior is not always true. Case studies are often used to refute or criticize a theory, which is usually constructive and can be further expanded and developed by introducing new variables.
3. Case studies are often more authoritative and reliable. Compared with the "cold" facts and data obtained by traditional experimental research, the detailed description in the case study is more humane, vivid and emotional, so it looks more reliable and more acceptable.
The disadvantage of case law is that because case law only uses a few cases, the research results may only be suitable for individual situations. Therefore, we must be cautious when popularizing these results or drawing more general conclusions. It takes too long to reveal causality.
The shortcomings of case law are as follows:
1, which only describes the behavior without discussing its internal mechanism. For example, a case study can describe the age, gender, family background and other characteristics of the subjects in detail, but it cannot explain how these characteristics affect the responses of the subjects; Can describe a unique subject's response to an experimental treatment, but can't explain its reasons; Case studies can also provide some explanations for the results, but these explanations are often uncertain.
2. Case studies involve unique events in the lives of unique individuals. Therefore, there is no reason to expect that the same results can be obtained outside the conditions defined by the study. However, if the study describes the typical cases and treatment process, the range of results for the applicable population can be expanded;
On the contrary, if the research includes abnormal experimental environment, peculiar historical background, eccentric behavior or more personalized treatment procedures, it is not appropriate to extend the research results to people other than the subjects.
3. Case studies are prone to errors. The first is selection bias. Obviously, it is impossible for researchers to report the most successful and impressive cases in detail on a completely ineffective and complicated new therapy (magazines will not publish such reports).
Secondly, the case study consists of the researcher's observation, with explanation, impression and suggestion as the mainstay. Generally speaking, subjects' reports must be screened by researchers to decide what is important and what is not.
Reference to the above content: Baidu Encyclopedia-Case Law?