Case Studies

Case studies are descriptive texts of human experience that include real-life details of environmental conditions surrounding particular events. The narratives may vary in length from a few paragraphs to book chapters or longer, often including exhibits and endnotes. The case study is both a research design for empirical investigations and a pedagogical method for teaching problem solving. As research designs, case studies are often employed to describe, analyze, and evaluate material of contextual richness and complexity. Research questions dealing with issues of how and why phenomena occur, such as group-, organizational-, and system-level events, are suited to this method of investigation. These studies may include both quantitative and qualitative data collected from a variety of sources with inputs reflecting multiple perspectives. When intended for teaching ...