Julie Zahle (University of Bergen)
Case Study research is characterized by the employment of multiple data gathering methods. In this paper, I examine the concurrent use of participant observation and qualitative interviews. The question I address is: what is the rationale behind their combination in case study research? The two most common rationales appeal to completeness and convergence respectively. I point to a third significant way to motivate their joint use: it allows the generation of complementary evidence that puts the researcher in a better position to confirm that her data set manifests central epistemic values. I refer to this as blended epistemic value validation.
