Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Negative case analysis boils down to using a small set of powerful heuristic principles to generate scientific hypotheses that enjoy strong empirical support from the intensive study of a small sample of cases. Over the years, negative case analysis also has been referred to as analytic induction or the limited case study method. Regardless of the name, the researchers who use this method deliberately search for empirical cases that contradict a scientific law or a working hypothesis with the goal of improving the hypothesis or law as well as the underlying conception of the problem to which the law or hypothesis applies. Thus, researchers who use this method do not eschew the discovery of a negative case. On the contrary, they would welcome such a discovery because it not only gives them the opportunity to overturn an established scientific law, but it also gives them a chance to invent an alternative hypothesis that could potentially become a pathbreaking scientific discovery ( Becker 1998 : 194–212). Although seldom recognized, negative case analysis actually has been applied for two different but related purposes. One purpose is to chronicle the development of scientific knowledge about a particular problem. According to Mead (1917) , scientific advance takes place over a process which, for expository purposes, can be divided into three distinct stages. During the first stage, ... log in or subscribe to read full text