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CSE 5800
Definition of Case Study
Last time, I gave Yin's definition of a research case study. I decided that I didn't like his definition on two counts. First, it's hard to read. Second, it is very restrictive. So, this time, I'm going to pressent my own definition, both paraphrasing Yin and expanding it.
A research case study is one of the many research methods grouped under the heading of empirical methods. It looks at something that happens while the case study is being performed. It looks at this set of events within a real-life context. Sometimes, the boundaries between the thing being studied and the context are fuzzy and hard to figure out.
A research case study copes with the situation in which there are many more variables of interest than there are data points. This is in distinct contrast with the controlled experiment, where there are typically several orders of magnitude more data points than variables.
Because there are more variables than data points, the research case study uses multiple converging sources of evidence to prove a point.
Without a theory to guide them, researchers will not know what specific data to collect out of the myriad data available.Also, they will not know what analyses would be meaningful to perform. Because of this, research case studies benefit from prior development of theoretical propositions.
This website's first version is by Ryan Knowles and is maintained by Pat McGee.