Case Study Research Topic 1

Response 1-1

Since I am still working on my dissertation proposal, I will be developing a question relating to that. I will be evaluating a mentoring program on students here at Arizona State University. These students would be at-risk students majoring in Public Health or a health-related program, such as Health Education and Health Promotion. For purposes of this case study and assignment, “at-risk” will be defined as any student who is first-generation, identifies as an underrepresented racial or ethnic minority, is eligible for federal Pell grants (which are provided to individuals designated as low-income), or is identified by CHS as being in high financial need. I want to see how participation in a mentoring program would influence these students. In particular, I wanted to look at the relationship of mentoring with self-efficacy and barriers to finishing college. My question is:

How does participation in a mentoring program influence at-risk Public Health students’ self-efficacy and their perceptions of barriers to finishing college?
 Response 1-2
In Yin (2014), he states that:
           "a case study is an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon (the 'case')
           in depth and within its real-world context, especially when the boundaries between
           phenomenon and context may not be clearly evidence. A case study inquiry copes with the
           technically distinctive situation in which there will be many more variables of interest than
           data points, and as a result relies on multiple sources of evidence, with data needing to
           converge in a triangulating fashion, and as a result benefits from the prior development of
           theoretical propositions to guide data collection and analysis."

Using this two-fold definition, I can argue that the case study work I am considering meetings this criteria. First, I am looking at current students in my program within ASU. I am not looking at previous or historical data. Perspectives and how these perspectives influence behavior may be difficult to ascertain when looking at a large scale data collection. Case studies will allow for a much more in-depth evaluation of the phenomenon. A narrative will need to be developed on an individual basis rather than as a group. There will likely be multiple influences and thus variables, which will only be able to be examined through a case study approach. 

Yin, R. K. (2017). Case study research and applications: Design and methods (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Response 1-3

This question of "how does participation in a mentoring program influence at-risk Public Health students’ self-efficacy and their perceptions of barriers to finishing college?" directly relates to my epistemological perspective. My theoretical framework uses the Self-Efficacy Theory. Self-efficacy beliefs (or theory) helps to understand how people feel, think, motivate themselves, and behave (Bandura, 1994). According to Albert Bandura (1977), who originally proposed the theory, self-efficacy is an individual’s confidence about the chances of successfully accomplishing a task. Bandura premised that people with higher levels of self-efficacy are more likely to achieve favorable outcomes. This is key in evaluating how something, in this case the mentoring program, can influence perspectives and thus behaviors. This theory looks specifically at HOW people feel and respond to things.  

Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavior change. Psychological Review, 84, 191-215.

Bandura, A. (1994). Self-efficacy. In R.J. Corsini (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Psychology, 2(3), 368-369.