ONE IS THE LIVELIEST NUMBER - THE CASE ORIENTATION OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

The epistemological thrust of qualitative research is case oriented. R egardless of qualitative methodology or sample size, qualitative resea rch is quintessentially about understanding a particular in the all-to gether. Regardless of the kind of analytic technique employed, qualita tive analysts are obliged, first and foremost, to make sense of indivi dual cases. Looking at and through each case in a qualitative project is the basis from which researchers may make idiographic generalizatio ns and move to cross-case comparisons to construct aggregations, synth eses, or interpretations of data from and faithful to individual cases . (C) 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.