A topic in research methodology
Case study is a methodology widely used in educational research. Case studies vary across scales, but each case needs to be bounded.
Case study tends to be naturalistic as normally the case is embedded within a context from which it cannot be removed for independent (laboratory / clinical) study. The boundaries between the case and its context may not always be clear. For example, we may look at one episode that is part of a lesson; one group of students working in the context of a class; one topic that is part of a teaching scheme… We can identify the specific instance that is our case, but we cannot dissect it from its natural context without severing connections that are inherent to the nature of the case: and the case cannot be fully appreciated without some knowledge of its context.
As the philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend wrote,
"…clarity, as early anatomists knew, is a property of corpses, not of living things…"
Feyerabend, 1999
A living organism is continuously exchanging matter and energy with, and is so shaping, its environment. We might consider the case that is studied in case study to be a metaphorical organism in a similar sense.
The researcher needs to set out the bounds for the case, and to justify how the case can be considered as one instance among others – a coherent and integrated system in its own right.
Stake (1995) suggests "A teacher may be a case. But her teaching lacks the specificity, the boundedness, to be a case." However, a teacher's teaching of a particular topic to a particular class could be a case.
Example
| Case | Context | Source |
| A sequence of laboratory sessions (some with prelabs) undertaken by a cohort of undergraduate students taking a General and Organic Chemistry course | an Agricultural Engineering programme in a Spanish University | Design and Assessment of an Online Prelab Model in General Chemistry |
Sources cited:
- Feyerabend, P. (1999). Conquest of abundance. A tale of abstraction versus the richness of being. (B. Terpstra, Ed.). Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press.
- Stake, R. E. (1995). The Art of Case Study Research. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.
- Taber, K. S. (2010). Preparing teachers for a research-based profession. In M. V. Zuljan & J. Vogrinc (Eds.), Facilitating effective student learning through teacher research and innovation (pp. 19-47). Ljubljana: Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana. [download Facilitating effective student learning through teacher research and innovation]
My introduction to educational research:
Taber, K. S. (2013). Classroom-based Research and Evidence-based Practice: An introduction (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
