Hi Teena and all,
Seems to be people often either overegg or over restrict the idea of a case
study and this applies to both teaching or research case study.
From experience, it doesn't need a book. Case study of both types can be
described in a short sentence.
'The purpose of a case study is to identify the relations between causes and
behaviours in a bounded instance.'
Of course there are a few riders. An instance can be an instance of
anything. For example, one might well have a case study on the arithmetic
operation of addition, as an instance of mathematical operators. From
experience, under inspection the root of all types of a case study
(including apparently non-causal case studies involving taxonomy and
classification) eventually emerges as 'identifying causes of behaviours' -
though sometimes you have to dig hard. The centrality of causality in case
studies means time is an implied or explicit aspect of any case study (all
causes take time to act). Instances are sub-systems, this implies there is
a boundary: some things are in the case and other things are outside. Its
useful if the relevant issues are inside and the non-relevant ones are
outside the case boundary. Because a case is an instance, you can choose the
boundaries. Because a case is a sub-system, case study analysis can be
enhanced with the methods of systems analysis. The idea of 'unit of
analysis' does not directly define the instance/case boundary. They are
ontologically different.
I'd be interested if anyone has found exceptions.
Best wishes ,
Terry
---
Dr Terence Love
PhD(UWA), BA(Hons) Engin. PGCEd, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI
Honorary Fellow
IEED, Management School
Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
ORCID 0000-0002-2436-7566
Director,
Love Services Pty Ltd
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
Tel: +61 (0)4 3497 5848
Fax:+61 (0)8 9305 7629
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