مقایسهٔ روش‌ها

	مطالعه موردی ابزاری	قوم‌نگاری
حوزه	کیفی	کیفی
خانواده	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
سال پیدایش	1995	c. 1922 (Malinowski's Argonauts of the Western Pacific)
پدیدآور	Robert E. Stake	Bronisław Malinowski (modern ethnography); rooted in 19th-century anthropology
نوع	Qualitative research method	Qualitative fieldwork tradition
منبع بنیادین	Stake, R. E. (1995). The Art of Case Study Research. Sage Publications. ISBN: 978-0803957671	Hammersley, M. & Atkinson, P. (2019). Ethnography: Principles in Practice (4th ed.). Routledge. ISBN: 978-1138504462
نام‌های دیگر	instrumental case research, theory-building case study, illustrative case study, issue-driven case study	Etnografi, participant observation, fieldwork, ethnographic research
مرتبط	6	5
خلاصه	Instrumental case study is a qualitative research design, formalised by Robert E. Stake (1995), in which a specific case is studied primarily to gain insight into an external issue or theoretical question — not because the case itself is intrinsically important. The case serves as an instrument for understanding something broader: a policy problem, a theoretical proposition, or a generalised phenomenon. One or several cases are selected because they are expected to illuminate the issue particularly well, and the researcher moves fluidly between the case and the issue throughout the study.	Ethnography is a qualitative research tradition in which a researcher immerses themselves in a social group or community over an extended period — typically three to six months or longer — to study its culture, values, and behaviours in their natural setting. Originating in social and cultural anthropology, and consolidated as a rigorous method by Bronisław Malinowski in the early twentieth century, ethnography produces rich, contextualised accounts of how people live, work, and make meaning together.