Comparative

Comparative Study

The comparative method is often used in the early stages of the development of a branch of science. It can help the researcher to ascend from the initial level of exploratory case studies to a more advanced level of general theoretical models, invariances, such as causality or evolution.

The design of comparative research is simple. Your objects are specimens or cases which are similar in some respects (otherwise, it would not be meaningful to compare them) but they differ in some respects. These differences become the focus of examination. The goal is to find out why the cases are different: to reveal the general underlying structure which generates or allows such a variation.

Comparation is one of the most efficient methods for explicating or utilizing tacit knowledge or tacit attitudes. This can be done, for example, by showing in parallel two slides of two slightly different objects or situations and by asking people to explain verbally their differences.

The method is also versatile: you can use it in detail work as a complement to other methods, or the entire structure of a research project can consist of the comparison of just a few cases.

In comparative study, you are examining two (or more) cases, specimens or events, often in the form of a table such as can be seen on the right where a column is reserved for each case, here called "Case 1" and "Case 2". On the basis of the target of your study you have to decide which are the interesting aspects, properties or attributes that you will have to note and record for each of the cases. In the table on the right, these aspects are called A, B and C. During the process of analysis, you then can add new aspects or drop out fruitless ones. Those aspects that are similar in both the cases need not be recorded, because here you are not making two case studies but only a comparison of the cases.

The final goal of research is usually to reveal the systematic structure, invariance, that is true not only for the cases that were studied, but for the entire group (population) where the cases came from. In other words, the goal is to generalize the findings. Of course, it would be foolhardy to assert anything about a larger group, if your study consisted of just two cases. The plausibility of your generalisation will increase, if you have instead of "Case 1", several cases from the same group, let us call it "Group 1", and similarly several cases from "Group 2". If all or the majority of these pairs show the same invariance, its credibility will quickly rise. There are statistical methods to calculate the credibility, or statistical significance of the findings. The question whether the found invariance then is true even outside the population, is something that the researcher normally leaves to be speculated by the readers of his report.

In the case that you wish to compare more than two groups, or the number of cases is large, the study begins to approach classification, a method that is discussed on another page.

In comparative like in most other studies there are two different styles, both of which will be discussed below:

• Descriptive Comparison aims at describing and perhaps also explaining the invariances of the objects. It does not aim at generating changes in the objects, on the contrary, it usually tries to avoid them.
• A special style of research is needed when the aim is not just to detect and explain but also to improve the present state of the object, or to help improving or developing similar objects in the future. This is the technique of Normative Comparison.