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168 CHAPTER 7 Case studies

THE INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN'S DIGITAL LIBRARY—CONT'D

FIGURE 7.1
The search interface for the International Children's Digital Library provides young
readers with search tools designed to meet their interests.
From the International Children's Library (http://www.childrenslibrary.org).

in the other countries, German children showed less increase in confidence
in their ability to use technology effectively. However, the German children
may have started out with higher levels of exposure to technology. Similarly,
children in the United States—who live in a relatively homogenous
environment—showed greater increase in interest in diverse cultures than
children from the other, more diverse cultures (Figure 7.1) (Druin et al., 2007).

Increased confidence in the results may be a compelling argument for involving mul-
tiple cases in your studies. Multiple cases help to combat criticisms that you have chosen
a single case that is unrepresentative. Any single case can be idiosyncratic, but multiple
cases are much less likely to be unrepresentative in the same ways. “Cherry-picking” a
single case to support hypotheses or justify a preexisting model might be possible, but
this sort of bias—whether intentional or not—is less likely with multiple-case studies.