Dear Latefa,

I think the justification depends on your objectives and research design. Do you seek theoretical or empirical generalization? Or do you want to explore and illustrate some research areas? One strong interview can sometimes be enough in the latter case. Maybe the attachment can be helpful.

Kirtie

You could make it clear in your research methodology section that you were doing multiple interviews within the case study and would be looking for a single stand out interview to focus on. It is similar to what Jackson and Mazzei did in their book 'Thinking with theory in qualitative research'. They interviewed a number of women but ended up only using two of the interviews because those two really stood out to them. Their explanation in the book might be of use to you to validate why you took that approach.

I do not see any need of justification (with alteration) in your methodology.  The narrative style of an interviewee cannot (even shouldn't) be controlled and that is the style that that interviews was able to articulate. In other words, it was probably a  valid in-depth interview.

I would discourage you to write a 'reverse methodology', that  is, spuriously altering methodology based on the results. That is not a good science.

Thanks Kirtie, i read that article before undertaking my field work. Thanks Leanne for very good ideas. Thanks Jae. You are all stars!

I think a lot depends on the method you use as the basis for your analysis. Relying on one central case would make good sense in narrative analysis, but less so for a comparative case study.

Also, I disagree with Jae about changing your choice of analysts strategy because qualitative research emphasizes flexibility and emergence.

Hi David.

I considered a mixture of quantitative and qualitative. I have interviewed 15 women and the very in-depth narrative was unexpected. It is very informative and stood to me, answering.Thank you all for taking the time to answering. it helps a lots. 

Greetings to everyone who contributed to this questions, I must say everyone's answer is very valuable and opens different questions for the debate. 

If I can give my modest comment, I would advise to concentrate on goal of the research, what kind of research problem are you trying to give an answer to... If you have decided for a multiple case study designs there is a reason why you conducted multiple interviews in the first place. In this context from some of the interviews you get more from some less information, but as long as you find different answers that will help you answer research questions I believe all of these should be considered. And also was the analysis you were thinking narrative, content, thematic analysis or any other? If you find justification for yourself it will be good for you paper as well...

 If you ask me, when we do qualitative research we are constantly going from data to literature to methodology and vice versa. This is why I like it :)

Whatever  you decide good luck with your research! 

Dear Latefa,

Firstly, I agree with Kirtie that you need to put this question on the foundation of your research goal.

Secondly, if you just want to know how to justify the ‘legality’ of the core status of this interviewee, then personally, I think you can think from two aspects:

One is about the role/status of the interviewee. Is she deeply involved in the issue you want to study? Does she hold any particular information/knowledge which makes her special to your research? Does she have any relationship with other key involved actors? Anyhow, you need to prove that she is ‘important’, at least compared with other interviewees.

And the other one is about the content she provided. Can the conversation between you and her give readers a full/deeply picture of this issue? Can this content give an answer to your research question? And of course, can readers trust this conversation? Etc.

If you can give answers to the above questions (or some others like them) in your methodology chapter, then I think that should be enough (at least technically). Hope useful to you.

By the way, just in my opinion, I don’t think you need to point out a ‘core interviewee’. Because I think the logic of writing should be different with the logic of data collection. The content of interviews should be re-organized. Of course, that’s just my personal opinion, just for your reference.

Best,

TAN

Dear Tan, 

This interviewee is special because she has opened questions to follow after PhD, of course still on the same topic. She has also answered nearly all questions and covered the many issues that i was researching. I can't say she's special, they all specials and thanks to them for agreeing to be interviewed as the research involves traumatic memories. Thank you all for you valuable advises ant time.

Latefa 

I don't think this is an "either/or" questions, since you can conduct a comparative case study on the full dataset (Robert Yin has a good book on this approach), as well as a narrative analysis on the most interesting and data-rich case.

I would not think of this in quantitative terms, since an N of 15 is hopeless for statistical analyses.

you have to justify it on the basis of the value of in-depth interviews in the context of what you aim to achieve

Do not think of this in quant terms but in terms of qualitative where data saturation and trustworthiness of data are key - see the journal of QSW for excellent articles on this. Of significance is ensuring that the case study chosen as a motif for the other interviews covers the key themes emerging from the data.

As mentioned above you can go to a journal like QSW which explores narrative theory and had a special issue on this and will provide you with some arguments on what to do here with regard to your methodology chapter.

Dear Latefa,

In answering your question, let me pose several questions:

1. When you say "the use of one interview ( among 15) as the core case study of your research" do you mean that it was the only one analyzed or the one you'd like to draw on most for representing findings? There's a big difference between analysis and representation.

2. What is your research question? Too often people present general questions, when the answer so intrinsically depends on the research question. For instance, as mentioned by pervious commentators, the answer is quite different if your question is one wherein you'd like to compare and make inferences that are more generalizable (although not truly generalizable of course), than if your question is one wherein you want to make no claim as to an experience qua experience (phenomenology), but more of a possible unfolding of an experience (e.g., narrative).

3. Why seek an external "justification"? Or, put otherwise, what is the true reason you want to do this? More important than finding a "good" justification", I would say, is revealing transparently why it is you want to do this. What is your justification? Write that justification. It may also help you realize for yourself (reflexively) what it is you are actually pursuing in your research. 

On a practical note: if you indeed are seeking a comparative research question, then the answer to your question is that you should analyze all of the interviews and compare them (by the way, you should attempt to stick to your research proposal as much as possible, but you may make alterations -and should do so - if you have a good reason of your own). When presenting findings you may say something along the lines of "As I present the findings, I will draw primarily on one case (Mary, altered name) due to its richness. The other stories will serve as auxiliary means in those instances where Mary's story resembles other cases"

Hope this helps.

Best,

Cobi.

Dear Cobi,

Your answer is more than i was expecting. Very very useful points. The true reason is that  Mary ( let's give her this name) went on to deeply answering questions. She also opened other questions to research beyond the scoop of the . I have done exactly what you said , her case is 1 chapter and the  others are included in another one to sustain arguments . I am writing my justification on my methodology chapter.Thank you for helping. By the way my questions is how to mobilise Algerian women living abroad ato act as a diaspora.Looking particularly at those highly skilled, secular , persecuted by radical islamic group armies  in Algeria during the 1990s. Thanks for your help.

Best wishes

Latefa 

Agree whit David Morgan, it doesn't have to be justificated, it just help in conclusions if you're making a quantitive analysis. Perhaps these enterview bring you new ideas to a focus group...

I actually agree with the present responses.  I am using interviewing in my qualitative study but I plan to analyze all interviews in order to explore common themes and differences.  I am not sure of the intended justification of using one interview to provide significant data for the research.