CASE STUDY RESEARCH METHOD

One of the several ways of doing social science research Preferred strategy when: “how” or “why” questions are being posed investigator has little control over events focus is on a contemporary phenomenon within some real-life context

Case study is used in: Policy, political science and public administration research Community psychology and sociology Organizational and management studies City and regional planning research Conduct of dissertations and theses in the social sciences

Defining the Research Questions What – exploratory, surveys, archival analysis How and Why – case studies, experiments, history

History VS Case Study VS Experiment History – preferred strategy when there is virtually no access or control Case Study – preferred in examining contemporary events when the relevant behaviors cannot be manipulated Experiment – done when an investigator can manipulate behavior directly, precisely and systematically

Traditional Prejudices Against Case Study Strategy Viewed as a less desirable form of inquiry Provides little basis for scientific generalization Takes too long and results in massive, unreadable documents

Technical Definitions: A case study is an empirical inquiry that: Investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context especially when the boundaries between the phenomenon and context are not clearly evident

The case study inquiry: Copes with the technically distinctive situation in which there will be many more variables of interest than data points, and as one result Relies on multiple sources of evidence, with data needing to converge a triangulating fashion, and as another result Benefits from the prior development of theoretical propositions to guide data collection and analysis