I plan to delve deeply into the concept of weathering using the qualitative research methodology to glean specific information on the subject. I want to know if the research supports or dispels the concept of weathering. Case studies will be my main focus, even though they are anecdotal in nature the specificity I’m seeking can be found in within their pages. What is happening to modern black women that was not happening over thirty years ago, or will my research suggest we just simply failed to adequately document those experiences. I believe only qualitative research will provide the answers I’m in search of for my project.
Will you be studying case studies, or will you be conducting a case study? The distinction is important, but both would be valid approaches. Studying multiple case studies would provide you a collection of qualitative data for analysis, which would require methods of textual analysis, while conducting a case study would provide ethnographic evidence that would likely need to be coded in some way. In either approach, you need to specific the methods you’ll use, either to plan a case study (observation, recording, survey, memoing, etc.) or to study a collection of case studies (thematic coding, textual analysis, etc.). You could even consider user experience testing, perhaps, in the sense that weathering is an experience whose results you seek to collect and analyse. UX testing would be challenging in this context.
I plan on studying a collection (a few case studies) rather than conducting a case study on my own. I believe thematic coding would be best for this type of analysis.