The unit of analysis is typically the patient in case studies, unless you are focusing on the physician, in which case the physician will be the unit of analysis. You, as the researcher, must decide what the unit of analysis is.

Ariel:

Thanks for kicking off the answer to my question. I am wondering if "perceptions" only could be the unit of analysis, without referring to the patient?

That is not a unit of analysis. A unit of analysis in research is the focus of the analysis, usually individuals, but also larger entities such as teams, organizations, communities, etc. A perception is a variable that would be studied among the units under analysis.

Thanks Ariel: You've cleared up my confusion.

Answering from a Marketing perspective, the alternatives for research strategy are experiment, survey, archival analysis, history and case study. Each strategy can be used for all three research purposes and each of these strategies follows its own logic to collect and analyse data. The conditions of the research determine when it is best to use each strategy. 

• the type of research questions,
• the extent of control over behavioral events and
• the degree of focus on contemporary events 

http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:389738/FULLTEXT01.pdf

It is an epistemological problem and methodological problem.  You need to learn the Person Centered Medicine paradigm, the Person Centered Health Paradigm  and learn  to apply and  teach the Person Centered Medicine Cinical Method.

Read my paper : Person Centered Medicine.Theory,Teaching and Research on Reserch gate.

In the classic case study, a “case” may be an individual. Jennifer Platt (1992) has noted how the early case studies in the Chicago school of sociology were life histories of such persons as juvenile delinquents or derelict men. You also can imagine case studies of clinical patients, of exemplary students, or of certain types of leaders. In each situation, an individual person is the case being studied, and the individual is the primary unit of analysis. Information about the relevant individual would be collected, and several such individuals or “cases” might be included in a multiple-case study. You would still need study questions and study propositions to help identify the relevant information to be collected about this individual or individuals. Without such questions and propositions, you might be tempted to cover “everything” about the individual(s), which is impossible to do. For example, the propositions in studying these individuals might involve the influence of early childhood or the role of peer relationships. Such seemingly general topics nevertheless represent a vast narrowing of the relevant data. The more a case study contains specific questions and propositions, the more it will stay within feasible limits. Of course, the “case” also can be some event or entity other than a single individual. Case studies have been done about decisions, programs, the implementation process, and organizational change.

Platt, Jennifer. (1992). “‘Case study’ in American methodological thought”. Current Sociology, 40, 17–48.

Debra - To address your 'perception' inquiry. There are a full range of theories that might be relevant to your study. For example:

• individual theories—for example, theories of individual development, cognitive behavior, personality, learning and disability, individual perception, and interpersonal interactions

This is more in my area since the majority of my research is qualitative....just can't leave my opinion out, lol.  I attached an article of relevance to qualitative methodology.

Best of Luck.

Colleagues:

Thank you so much for sharing your expertise and resources with me. I am now better informed about the Unit of Analysis in the Case Study.

Many thanks,

Debra

As Bob Stake says in his book, The Art of Case Study Research, case study is the study of the particularity and complexity of a single case, coming to understand its activity within important circumstances (p xi).  The case is a specific, a complex functioning thing (e.g., a child, an innovative program, a classroom, a patient, etc.). If we need to learn about some general problem, we can study a particular case to better understand the problem. This is called an intrinsic case study...the case is given. If we have a research question or a need for general understanding in order to get insight into the question, we can study a particular case...a case to understand something else...this is called an instrumental case study.

Defining unit of analysis in case study some times becomes a puzzing question to the researchers. In my understanding it is necessary to be clear on two concepts 'unit of observation' and ' unit of anslysis'. In case study an individual, a phenomena, an institution could be the case and related to this case we collect information fronpm different individuals, use different theoretical categories from literatures. These are the unit of observation from whom/where we collect information. The unit of anslysis is defined by the researcher based upon the research questions. The unit could be 'themes' not the individual units from which you are taking information. For instance if a case study is done in school violence, school voilence is a case and the unit of observations could be schools, students, teachers, parents,etc but these unit of observation could not be the unit of analysis. Unit of anlysis could be the location of the schools, cultural background, age group, gender, education. It means that it is the researcher has to define unit of analysis depending upon the research question chunking the mass of information collected from different unit of observation. However one should be clear that some time both unit of observstion and unit of snalysis could be the same.

The six category Analysis by John Heron  (1986) in educational Psychology has it that there are many different processesfor determining the process of analysis in a case study. If it is clinical between patient and Dr. one would take a practitioner and client approach. In law, you take an Authoritative prescriptive intervention, when counselling you would take a facilitative or Carthartic intervention, in media and communication studies, you would take an informative approach, education and Training and Interpersonal skills training, you would use behaviour Analysis  in engineering you would take  prescriptive directive interventions. (Heron John 1977a). Take both  objective and subjective dimension of meaning to see if there is any correlation here between the public domain and the cognitive domain through logical sequencing.

Somewhere between Psychodynamic theory, Sociodynamic theory and Psychosomatic theory would be best applied in Applied sciences as well as other means of analysis.

Result: Psychosocial prediction, educational growth and assessment, relevant information, visual aids, handouts, refferals, disign and build etc.

I hope I have given you some new vocabullary to digest.

Regards

The unit-of-analysis can be derived from research questions and propositions concerning e.g. an individual, a process or an organization. To further specify the unit-of-analysis research have to define boundaries of the case with regard to time, place, activity, context as well as priorities for data collection and analysis.

http://www.tim.ethz.ch/education/courses/Fall_Semester_2014/DocSem_Fall14/21_Summary

The community members' practices would be the unit of analysis and your research questions would help to narrow your cast study, one of which may be their perceptions of different aspects of their practices in responding to "issues."

dealing with "issues".

Best,

Debra

Thank you for sharing this fascinating discussion. If you are now clear Debra Sharon Ferdinand-James may I introduce another question please?

I am a part time PhD student conducting a case study following Yin's methodology. I am grappling with defining the case and the units of analysis and could do with some help. I am a nurse and am looking at a process, "How care home residents transition to and from the emergency department".

I am using multiple qualitative methods to collect data. Non-participant observations in care homes, ambulances and emergency departments. Interviews with staff, residents and relatives and, documentary analysis.

Three main propositions were derived from the literature: communication, resident and relative involvement and staff attitudes and skillsets. Each of these propositions are broken down into specific elements. Communication, for example, includes verbal handovers between staff. Which can be reduced to finer detail such as content, body language and use of humour.

I am collecting data and need to define the case and units of analysis before I commence data analysis. Following a recent debate with my supervisors this is my current position:

Case - the process of care home residents transition to and from the emergency department.

Units of observation - the actors in the non-participant observations, interviews and documents.

Units of analysis - the smallest units derived from the theoretical propositions, content, verbal and non-verbal communication in a handover/handoff, for example. Further units may emerge as the data is analysed.

I would be grateful for any views on my current thinking, please.

Mark

Yes, you are on the right track and further units of analysis may emerge as you analyse your data that you may want to focus on in your research. I extedn best wishes for every success in your research study.

Debra

There is NO clear explanation or process for determining the unit of analysis in a case study. It depends upon the nature of the case study. Therefor, it varies from case to case.