Doing case studies
A case study is an in-depth investigation of a single case or instance in a real context -- a single person, patient, group, event, community, program, policy, agency, organization, business, or other entity. It allows for detailed exploration of complex events or phenomena. The data involved are often gathered from observations, interviews, or other methods.
Contents
1 Rationale
Because it focuses on a single entity or subject, it is often done as an exploratory study, e.g., to identify a possible explanation or analysis, which can be studied further with other research methods. It is also used for more practical purposes, such as situations where a full academic analysis is not needed or practical, such as case studies of business and companies, for practical understanding of reasons for a company's success or failure. It can also be used to evaluate a program (e.g., an educational program, a government program or policy) based on established criteria for evaluation (such as an often-used model for evaluating programs) to assess the effectiveness of a program.
A case study can be an effective tool for creating business reports and for conducting business analysis. This can be valuable for students in a business program learning how to analyze companies. This is also valid for more senior workers in a company who are tasked with analyzing their company, its challenges, problems, or potential future directions. In fact, business analysis is an important field in business, and an important tool for companies' growth and success.
2 Steps
For conducting a case study, such as for my IW or Intermediate Writing course, the following steps are useful.
- Identify a well-defined case
- Formulate a specific research question
- Determine the research methods
- Collect empirical materials
- Describe the case
- Analyze and interpret data
- Evaluate solutions, outcomes, or recommendations
