案例说服

Nicolaj Siggelkow
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Yet, imagine the following scenario, adapted from Ramachandran (1998): You cart a pig into my living room and tell me that it can talk. I say, “Oh really? Show me.” You snap with your fingers and the pig starts talking. I say, “Wow, you should write a paper about this.” You write up your case report and send it to a journal. What will the reviewers say? Will the reviewers respond with “Interesting, but that’s just one pig. Show me a few more and then I might believe you”? I think we would agree that that would be a silly response. A single case can be a very powerful example. Perhaps not surprisingly, the management field is not alone in its debate about the value of smallversus large-sample research. In neurology, where a lot of knowledge has been gleaned from case studies of individual patients with particular brain injuries (lesions), a similar debate is underway. Ramachandran, a prominent neurologist, uses the example above to make his case for case research. So should we now rejoice and simply cite Ramachandran to motivate and justify our case-based research? Well, we had better not forget that the above scenario involved a talking pig. That was quite a deal. Thus, my first main point is that if you want to write a case study that derives its excitement and justification through little more than the description of a particular phenomenon, make sure you have a talking pig. If not, a purely descriptive study will be a hard sell. The second charge that case-based researchers often feel obliged to defend themselves against is that of nonrepresentativeness. “You have a biased sample,” reviewers might say. Let us again have a quick look at the field of neurology. One of the most celebrated case studies in that field is of a man named Phineas Gage. Living in the second half of the 19th century, Gage was the foreman of a construction crew preparing the bed for a new railroad line. Part of his job was to fill holes, first with gunpowder and then with sand, which was then packed in with a large tamping iron. Unfortunately, at one hole Gage forgot the sand, created a spark with his tamping iron, and ignited the charge. The tamping iron, weighing thirteen and a half pounds, shot through his head, landing 30 yards behind him. Remarkably, Gage survived and continued to live for 12 more years, despite the large hole in his head and major destruction to his brain’s frontal lobes. However, both psychologically and behaviorally, he was a changed man. For example, while he had previously been considered a smart man who energetically executed his plans, he now was capricious and vacillating, devising many plans but not following through with any of them. Similarly, whereas before he had been described as having a temperate personality, he was now impatient and profane, particularly when advice given to him conflicted with his desires. 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引用次数: 3782

摘要

每位作者的目标都是写出一篇让读者(和审稿人)信服的论文。由于基于案例研究的论文的作者没有求助于“结果在p 0.05上显著”这一有助于减轻读者对实证论文怀疑的规范声明,使用案例研究的研究人员经常觉得他们正在打一场艰苦的战斗来说服他们的读者。在这篇短文中,我根据过去十年来阅读、回顾和撰写基于案例研究的论文的经验,提供了一些想法。这些显然只是这位作家的观点,因此应该持保留态度。我在这里寻求的更多是引发思考,而不是提供答案。是什么让案例研究具有说服力?许多作家觉得他们面临的第一个大障碍是样本太小。然而,想象一下以下场景,改编自《拉马钱德兰》(1998):你把一头猪推到我的客厅,告诉我它会说话。我说:“哦,真的吗?给我。”你打个响指,猪就开始说话了。我说,“哇,你应该写一篇关于这个的论文。”你写好你的病例报告,然后寄给杂志社。审稿人会怎么说?评论者是否会回答:“有趣,但那只是一头猪。再给我看看,我可能就会相信你了?”我想我们都同意这是一个愚蠢的回应。一个单独的案例可能是一个非常有力的例子。也许不足为奇的是,在关于小样本与大样本研究的价值的争论中,管理领域并不孤单。在神经病学领域,许多知识都是从个别脑损伤(病变)患者的个案研究中收集到的,类似的争论正在进行中。Ramachandran,一位著名的神经学家,用上面的例子来说明他的案例研究。那么,我们现在是否应该欢欣鼓舞,简单地引用拉马钱德兰的话来激励和证明我们基于案例的研究?好吧,我们最好不要忘记,上面的场景涉及到一只会说话的猪。那是笔不小的交易。因此,我的第一个主要观点是,如果你想写一个案例研究,通过对一个特定现象的描述来激发它的兴奋和理由,那么确保你有一只会说话的猪。如果没有,纯粹的描述性研究将很难被接受。基于案例的研究人员经常感到有义务为自己辩护的第二个指控是缺乏代表性。“你的样本有偏见,”评论者可能会说。让我们再次快速浏览一下神经学领域。这个领域最著名的案例之一是一个叫菲尼亚斯·盖奇的人。盖奇生活在19世纪下半叶,是一个施工队的工头,为一条新铁路线准备铺床。他的部分工作是填洞,首先用火药,然后用沙子,然后用一个大夯铁把沙子填满。不幸的是,盖奇在一个洞上忘记了沙子,用他的捣铁产生了火花,点燃了炸药。重达13磅半的捣铁打穿了他的头,落在他身后30码的地方。值得注意的是,盖奇活了下来,并继续活了12年多,尽管他的头部有一个大洞,大脑额叶也受到了严重破坏。然而,在心理上和行为上,他都变了一个人。例如,虽然他以前被认为是一个聪明的人,积极地执行他的计划,但他现在是反复无常和优柔寡断的,制定了许多计划,但没有一个贯彻到底。同样地,在他被描述为有节制的性格之前,他现在变得不耐烦和亵渎,特别是当别人给他的建议与他的愿望相冲突时。这些心理和行为上的变化使观察者推断出额叶可能发挥的功能。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
Persuasion with case studies
The goal of every author is to write a paper that readers (and reviewers) find convincing. Since writers of papers based on case research do not have recourse to the canonical statement “results are significant at p 0.05” that helps assuage readers’ skepticism of empirical papers, researchers using case research often feel they are fighting an uphill battle to persuade their readers. In this short essay, I provide some thoughts guided by my experience of reading, reviewing, and writing papers based on case-based research over the last decade. These are clearly only the views of this particular writer and thus should be taken with a considerable grain of salt. I am seeking here more to provoke thought than to provide answers. What makes a case study persuasive? The first big obstacle that many writers feel they face is the charge of having too small a sample. Yet, imagine the following scenario, adapted from Ramachandran (1998): You cart a pig into my living room and tell me that it can talk. I say, “Oh really? Show me.” You snap with your fingers and the pig starts talking. I say, “Wow, you should write a paper about this.” You write up your case report and send it to a journal. What will the reviewers say? Will the reviewers respond with “Interesting, but that’s just one pig. Show me a few more and then I might believe you”? I think we would agree that that would be a silly response. A single case can be a very powerful example. Perhaps not surprisingly, the management field is not alone in its debate about the value of smallversus large-sample research. In neurology, where a lot of knowledge has been gleaned from case studies of individual patients with particular brain injuries (lesions), a similar debate is underway. Ramachandran, a prominent neurologist, uses the example above to make his case for case research. So should we now rejoice and simply cite Ramachandran to motivate and justify our case-based research? Well, we had better not forget that the above scenario involved a talking pig. That was quite a deal. Thus, my first main point is that if you want to write a case study that derives its excitement and justification through little more than the description of a particular phenomenon, make sure you have a talking pig. If not, a purely descriptive study will be a hard sell. The second charge that case-based researchers often feel obliged to defend themselves against is that of nonrepresentativeness. “You have a biased sample,” reviewers might say. Let us again have a quick look at the field of neurology. One of the most celebrated case studies in that field is of a man named Phineas Gage. Living in the second half of the 19th century, Gage was the foreman of a construction crew preparing the bed for a new railroad line. Part of his job was to fill holes, first with gunpowder and then with sand, which was then packed in with a large tamping iron. Unfortunately, at one hole Gage forgot the sand, created a spark with his tamping iron, and ignited the charge. The tamping iron, weighing thirteen and a half pounds, shot through his head, landing 30 yards behind him. Remarkably, Gage survived and continued to live for 12 more years, despite the large hole in his head and major destruction to his brain’s frontal lobes. However, both psychologically and behaviorally, he was a changed man. For example, while he had previously been considered a smart man who energetically executed his plans, he now was capricious and vacillating, devising many plans but not following through with any of them. Similarly, whereas before he had been described as having a temperate personality, he was now impatient and profane, particularly when advice given to him conflicted with his desires. These psychological and behavioral changes led observers to draw inferences about what functions might be performed by the frontal lobes.
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