Methoden vergleichen

	Vergleichende erklärende Forschung	Vergleichende Fallstudie
Fachgebiet	Forschungsdesign	Qualitativ
Familie	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Entstehungsjahr	1843 (Mill); contemporary social-science formalisation 1971–1987	1984 (Yin); 1995 (Stake)
Urheber	John Stuart Mill (methods of agreement and difference, 1843); formalised in social science by Arend Lijphart and Charles Ragin	Robert K. Yin; Robert E. Stake
Typ	Observational explanatory research design	Qualitative / mixed research design
Wegweisende Quelle	Ragin, C. C. (1987). The Comparative Method: Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies. University of California Press. ISBN: 978-0520063167	Yin, R. K. (2018). Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods (6th ed.). Sage. ISBN: 978-1506336169
Aliasnamen	comparative explanation, explanatory comparative design, cross-case explanatory research, comparative causal analysis	cross-case study, multi-site case study, multiple case study design, comparative case analysis
Verwandt	4	4
Zusammenfassung	Comparative explanatory research is an observational design that systematically examines two or more groups, nations, organisations, or time points in order to explain why differences in outcomes occur. Rather than merely describing variation, it seeks causal or contributing mechanisms by holding some conditions constant while contrasting others — drawing on Mill's classical methods of agreement and difference.	Comparative case study is a qualitative research design in which two or more bounded cases are studied in depth and then systematically compared to identify similarities, differences, and patterns across contexts. Rooted in Yin's replication logic and Stake's multiple case framework, it is particularly suited to questions that ask how or why a phenomenon unfolds differently — or similarly — across distinct settings, populations, or time periods.