The case study design is a useful qualitative method for an in-depth exploration of a phenomenon. This paper is an analysis of the article by Marconnot et al. (2019), “Recognition of barriers to physical activity promotion in immigrant children in Spain: A qualitative case study.” The authors employed a case study method to examine the participation of immigrant children in sports activities. A case study design is appropriate when the researchers are exploring intricate phenomena within a specific context (Rashid et al., 2019). This implies that case study methods are useful when working with a small sample and a small population affected by a phenomenon. Moreover, case studies belong to the quantitative research design methods. This approach is suitable for the exploration of why and how something occurs (Rashid et al., 2019). This comes in opposition to the quantitative design, where the researcher received a data-based answer, which, however, provides limited space for the interpretation of results.
With the study in question, qualitative design is appropriate, and a case study is the most suited way of examining the issues of immigrant children with physical activity. This is because the sample of this study is 25 participants, which is a relatively small number of individuals. This amount would be insufficient to perform statistical analysis of data and find statistically significant answers to the question “why do immigrant children not engage in physical activity.” The second justification for the case study design is the solution that the authors offer. Mainly, apart from exploring the phenomenon and explaining why it occurs, the researchers were able to determine the relevance of each factor they found during their study and produce recommendations based on the findings. Therefore, the case study method was appropriate to answer the questions of this research.
The strengths of using the case study method for this research study are mainly connected to the usability of the results. Moreover, as the authors of this research note, “a case study may be formed of different units, which help to describe a phenomenon” (Marconnot et al., 2019, p. 3). The participants may be connected in certain conditions under the premise of a study, while in real life, they would not be linked by such circumstances. More specifically, the children of immigrants who were the sample group for this research have had a low engagement in the rate of the sport already. And as a result, the issue that did not get attention from the school’s employees, parents, and children has been brought to light due to this case study. Moreover, the participants were encouraged to reflect on this problem, its causes, and potential solutions to it.
Another strength of this research is that the researchers used several stages, including unstructured interviews, document collection, and other methods in a stage-by-stage manner to collect data. Moreover, they applied the DESCARTES method to designing this case study, which is another strength because it helps structure the data collection and analysis processes.
The limitation of the case study method is the reliability of data and the ability to generalize the results. As was mentioned, this research has a small sample of 25 individuals, which means that the results may not reflect the overall situation for the broader population. A quantitative approach with a larger sample and statistical analysis, following this case study, would help confirm the findings and prove that the reasons the researchers pointed out indeed affect immigrant children in Spain.
Moreover, another issue is the fact that the researchers themselves do not discuss the limitations of their findings and do not point out potential biases. For example, the study took place in a single community and at one school in Spain, which means that the data collection might have been biased. Moreover, the researchers did not discuss how they minimized their own bias when collecting and analyzing the qualitative data. This paper also lacks a section on the validity and verifiability of the results, which does not allow the reader to reflect on the potential limitations of the findings and issues that might arise when generalizing the findings to a larger population of immigrant children. These limitations, however, arise from the nature of the case study design as it does not require the researchers to discuss the limitations and biases and allows them to focus merely on their findings and on discussing the conditions in which the case study took place.
In the literature review section, the authors cited several qualitative research studies performed in other states, such as the US, that focus on the same issue. However, in this paper, the literature review section is a part of the introduction, and there is no separate literature review. Other types of data included in this section include statistics about gender inequalities in sports and rates of participation in sports based on gender. Additionally, the authors cite health-related studies that provide evidence that sports improve one’s health and are beneficial.
The authors of this study used several models and theoretical frameworks to guide the process of research design. Firstly, they applied the DESCARTES method to design the case study itself. According to the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2020), “Descartes’ method is one of the most important pillars of his philosophy and science” (para. 1). This model is a toolkit that suggests a series of questions that a researcher has to ask to facilitate the proper data collection (Paparini et al., 2020). Additionally, during the second stage of the research, the researchers used the ecological model, which helps comprehend the relationships between individuals and their environments. This model is also helpful when trying to determine people’s behaviors in the current socio-cultural environments. The use of these theoretical frameworks is justified since the DESCRATE framework has helped design the case study process, and the ecological model was applied to understand the specifics of behavior that immigrant children display.
The study’s findings enabled the researchers to distinguish the specific barriers that obstruct immigrant children in Spain from participating in physical activities. More specifically, Rarconnot et al. (2019) found that “(a) the meaning of physical activity, (b) gender inequalities, (c) academic burden, (d) lack of social contact, (e) expenses and family economy, (f) lack of infrastructure and natural surroundings, (g) time constraints, (h) fear and insecurity, and (i) the reason for immigrating” were affecting physical activity engagement of these children (p. 7). Moreover, the researchers applied the ecological model to determine the level of importance for each of the factors and produce recommendations for schools.
By using a different method of research design, the researchers would be able to affect the findings of the study. For example, if Rarconnot et al. (2019) would focus primarily on the semi-structured interviews as the main method, they would be able to gain a more in-depth understanding of the perspectives of the teachers, and family members of the immigrant children on the issue. On the other hand, the case study design allowed the scholars to collect data from multiple sources, while a semi-structured interview design would require them to only interview one group, either teachers or family members. Hence, such as design would shift the focus of the study and would produce results that would be more useful for the parents and policymakers who aim to address the issue of child physical activity participation.
Another research design that would produce different study results is the quantitative approach, for example, surveys. For this method, one would have to have a larger sample of respondents, and the researchers would have to conduct a substantial literature review to determine the factors that might affect physical activity engagement. Then, through the survey design, they would determine whether the participants view these factors as relevant. However, the quantitative approach does not allow the researchers to produce detailed recommendations based on their findings.
In summary, this paper analyzes a research study by Rarconnot et al. (2019) titled “Recognition of barriers to physical activity promotion in immigrant children in Spain: A qualitative case study.” The analysis reveals that a case study method is appropriate for this type of research. Moreover, the researchers have used two theoretical models, DESCARTES and ecological framework, to design the case study and approach to structuring the interview questions, which is appropriate in this case. The findings of this study are a set of barriers that obstruct children from immigrant families from engaging in physical activity.
References
Marconnot, R., Marín-Rojas, A., Delfa-de-la-Morena, J., Pérez-Corrales, J., Gueita-Rodríguez, J., Fernández-de-las-Peñas, C., & Palacios-Ceña, D. (2019). Recognition of barriers to physical activity promotion in immigrant children in Spain: A qualitative case study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(3), 431.
Paparini, S., Green, J., Papoutsi, C., Murdoch, J., Petticrew, M., & Greenhalgh, T. (2020). Case study research for better evaluations of complex interventions: Rationale and challenges. BMC Medicine, 18(1).
Rashid, Y., Rashid, A., Warraich, M. A., Sabir, S. S., & Waseem, A. (2019). Case study method: A step-by-step guide for business researchers. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 1-10.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2020). Descartes’ method. Web.