As far as I know, most of the case studies are based on clinical cases. I wonder whether it is acceptable to do a case study with a supernormal participant. I searched it with Google, but found nothing. Have you seen some studies related to supernormal cases?
Case studies are of some phenomenon (theoretical/academic or empirical). So whether you can use a supernormal case for case study, depends what are you studying. I mean why are you taking the case to study.
Thank you, Muhammad Usman Amin Siddiqi,
Do you know any studies using supernormal cases?
I think that one of best uses of case studies is case studies of what you call supernormal cases. N-1 designs might help you get a good methodology.
This should help
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_of_1_trial
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-subject_design
For case-control study case should be well defined who has an outcome(disease of research interest). I could not understand what you mean by super-normal?
Thanks Pradip Sen.
What I meant with super-normal is a case with higher ability than normal.
Do you have norms for a normal population/sample regarding the abilities you want to measure? If so, then this could help you contextualize the abilities of this particular individual.
Thanks Jan Antfolk. I have a large sample of normal subjects. Do you know some case studies that using similar approach?
Yes of course you can, but you have to have a good reason for doing so. In qualitative research, there is a sampling strategy where one looks for extreme cases or outlier cases, and this is usually within a context of wanting to better understand a particular phenomenon by investigating the full range of that phenomenon rather than concentrating on typical, usual, or randomly selected cases. Selecting such a a case implies a comparison with "typical" cases, so that difference needs to be clearly elucidated.
No, Unfortunately I can't think of any examples of this approach. But I think Victorias answer is helpful. On the measures you have for both this individual and a "normal sample", you can compare them. You should be able to show that your "supernormal" case truly is different from the normal population. Perhaps that one at least one (but preferably several measures), this individual is clearly above or below the normal variation of your norm group. After this, and as Victoria says, you have motivated why you selected this individual for "further investigation".
Will you use data you have already collected or will you collect more data for this particular individual?
I think you need to clearly define what you mean as "supernormal case" and then follow the approach as described above by Jan and Victoria
Thanks a lot Jan.
We have had data from a large sample already. Recently, we just collected data from a special case. I think a case study may be ok, but i am not quite sure.
Thanks Victoria.
The case is from a special challenge contest, which needs supernormal spatial ability. The contest is basically impossible for normal people. So far, the laboratory results did show that the behavioral performance was higher than normal samples in related tasks, but not in unrelated tasks. I will do more analyses related to brain.
Do you think this case would be ok?
Surely your initial description would describe your evidence for the supernormal nature of your study? If this was well evidenced with reference to what you are describing as normal to validate your case then the information you get from your deep dive into this case would be truly interesting. I was reading one of the books on case study that talked about this very issue. I am full of post flu tiredness but if you were interested I would look it up. It might be Gary Thomas but I am not 100% sure.
Thanks a lot, Fiona. Take care of yourself.
I may have find it.
How to do your Case Study: A Guide for Students and Researchers
Thanks again.
I saw this and thought about case studies - anyway you may get what I got out of it but it may be a me thing.
http://on.ted.com/Achor
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