Academic Research and Communication Skills

Final Assignment Research Report

THE CASE STUDY METHOD IN POST-GRADUATE EDUCATION

How and why is the case study method used in post-graduate education?

Name Nguyen Hoang Vinh Lecturer James Wold Date December 12th 2011

Post-graduate education is part of higher education, also tertiary education, which refers to post-secondary education. However, a post-graduate education generally requires a bachelors degree. Though, post-graduate education varies in different countries, e.g. Germany, in this paper, post-graduate education refers to two types of qualifications: Masters degree and Doctorate. Study methods implemented in tertiary education, in particular Master and Doctorate programs, are essentially different from study methods used in secondary education. There myriads of methods available for research; which method is more suitable depends on the nature of the phenomena to be explained or studied. There are two main approaches: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative methods are mainly used in natural science, which base their explanation power on facts gathered of the real world. Qualitative methods are traditionally used in social science, which tries does not try to understand the cause-effect relationship as often seen in natural science, but the subjectivity of the phenomena (Noor). This research paper focuses on the case study method, which is used extensively in higher education studies, especially in social sciences, which require holistic and in-depth approaches. The case study method employs both quantitative and qualitative data to explain a phenomenon through observation and analysis ( Tellis , 1997). Although qualitative in nature, the case study method also utilizes quantitative methodologies.

Figure1 .Nick Johns, Case study method, Bournemouth University, consultancy, presentation. The case in the case study method refers to an event, an entity, an individual, or a unit of analysis. Case study enables to understand complex real-life situations where multiple sources of evidence can be used.

The case study method is an empirical inquiry which focuses on contemporary phenomena in real-life context to answer the question mainly how and why, sometimes what in order to explain complex social observations. Case study is a method of doing research that enables people to go further and to research closely in a specific field .It is defined in Merriam-Webster's dictionary (2009) as follows :Case study. An intensive analysis of an individual unit ( as a person or community) stressing developmental factors in relation to environment (Flyvbjerg 2011 , p.301) .Case study is sometimes mistaken as case method , but those are not the same. Case study emphasize thick and precise descriptions and information, it is a method of learning through researching about a complicated instance based on the basic understanding of that instance to analyze it in its context. Lamnek has well formulated a brief definition of case study as a research approach, situated between concrete data taking techniques and methodologic paradigms." (2005) . Otherwise, case method is a way of teaching that uses a case as an example and the students have to decided when facing a problem (Hammond 1976).

Case study is used in many areas such as design , business , law , medicine , sociology , psychology ,economics and others. The case study method is used to investigate a phenomenon when there are a large variety of factors included in the investigation, no basic laws or theories to determine the relationship of the factors, and when the factors and the relationship can be directly observed (Fidel 1984). MBA courses are usually structured by accompanying lecture-based teaching with case studies, a popular method introduced by the Harvard Business School (Coomber). In 1880, Christopher Lang dell, the dean of Harvard Law School, revived the case study method that early Chinese philosophers used. By the early 20 th century, virtually every school adopted Lang dells method (Case study). This method had then been used extensively in medicine, psychology, and social work, often called case work or case history(Platt 1992). After the Second World War, positivism dominated the philosophy of science and favored quantitative methods such as surveys, statistical analysis, experiments, etc., which are mainly used in natural science rather than humanities, which still employ case study methods. Since then, case study methodology has been developed in a pragmatic direction, combining quantitative and qualitative methods (Johansson , p.6). There are a lot of stories about how it was created. It is told that the case study was first introduced by Frederic Le Pay when he needed a system that helped him with his statistics in family budgets ( Les Ouvriers Europeens, 1879). Another story is in the past, when the Harvard University was just started, there seemed to be no textbooks available for the graduate program in business so they have to think of solutions and the final one that is to instruct the students to read the cases and to come to class prepared to discuss about them and to offer recommendations for appropriate courses of action. (Need of the hour, 2005). This method has been used effectively since then. There are three categories of case study : Exploratory (from the word explore), explanatory ( from explain ) and descriptive ( from describe). Yin ( 1994) has presented a brief summary of the case studys application as follows: To explain complex causal links in real-life interventions To describe the real-life context in which the intervention has occurred To describe the intervention itself To explore those situations in which the intervention being evaluated has no clear set of outcomes.

First, exploratory case study means to explore the phenomenon in real-life which gives the interest to the researcher. After a person has done a specific study , he might ask himself questions of how? and why? since the outcomes are not clearly evaluated and these will lead him to find further and detailed information of the case observed. As Yin points out : A pilot study is considered an example of an exploratory case study. (1984) . Second , descriptive case study is to observe and describe the phenomenon or the intervention which it happened in the question asked. The main purpose of the researcher is to describe the data exactly how it should be given. The question could be a what? but it can lead to question like : What are the effects? so it is similar to how?.McDonough and McDonough suggested that the descriptive case study is probably in a narrative form (1997). Finally, explanatory case study means to examine and explain the phenomenon in the data fully and deeply. These complex cases are available to explain in three ways : " a knowledge-driven theory, a problem-solving theory, and a social-interaction theory. They are to stipulate the results of the discoveries from the basic research (knowledge-driven), or find and receive the information from an external research (problem-solving), or maybe the researchers can communicate directly to the users (social-interaction). Results of case studies are analytical generalizations, in contrast to statistical generalizations. These are based on reasoning (Johansson ,p.8), and not data. Analytical generalization can be made usually through combination of deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning. It is argued that case studies provide more realistic responses than pure statistics-based studies because of the narrow field that the case study is dealing with. This method is suitable to study rare phenomena where data is limited or not available. A reason is that the data examined is conducted within the context of its use (Yin 1984).This contrasts with experiment which isolates data from the context, and focuses on a limited number of variables (Zainal 2003). The case study method has disadvantages concerning internal-external validity. As a result, findings of a case study may only be applicable to similar cases (Garger 2010). As a result, it is hard to generalize from a single case. It is hard to draw cause-effect conclusions since events in the case study may have low or no correlation at all, but are only a coincident observed in a single case.It is easy to have a biased case study, since the study is affected by the interpretation of the author.