Bernardo writes:
<snip>
In turn, my question is: why aren't cases more widely used 
within undergraduate courses?
Its true that growing class sizes don't help. However, in my experience case
teaching is most often used in graduate and particularly, MBA programmes.
Why is this?
Is it because a) there is a small database of cases for undergraduates or b)
becasue  most graduates have had previous working experience and hence they
readily appreciate the contingent nature of management?
<snip>

Interesting questions: by coincidence, one of the research 
projects that has been funded by the ECCH (the one I am 
involved with!) concerns the implications of increasing 
student numbers, etc., for the use of the case method in 
teaching and learning. (More news later on this). It is 
very early days, but I would hazard the hypotheses (in the 
UK higher education sector, anyway) that:

1.  cases are in fact very widely used in undergraduate 
business education, especially in strategy, ops mgt, and 
marketing modules

2.  that these cases were previously of the "harvard 
business school" sort but that other types of cases are 
more frequently being used (ie cases from textbooks, 
minicases, videocases and "vignettes" from the business 
print media)

3.  that this use of cases increasingly concerns 
pedagogical aims of theory illustration and application 
rather than the development of more complex cognitive 
skills such as problem identification, problem analysis, 
problem solving, and so on

Comments vilifying, confirming, contesting, refining, 
expanding this rather crass analysis are very welcome


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Booth, Charles
Email: [log in to unmask]
"University of the West of England"



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