Case Study: Logic

Case Study: Logic
explore a variety of dimensions of the community and
can thereby create a multidimensional, or holistic,
sense of the community rather than, let us say, a
unidimensional one based upon its size or territorial
breadth. In so doing the researcher can also emerge
with a fuller understanding of the case in question by
fashioning an integrated portrait of the case into
which the various pieces, or dimensions, fit. Fourth,
the case study provides boundaries to the nature of the
phenomenon under investigation. The case is chosen
because it represents a self-contained unit that will
permit the researcher to investigate the phenomenon
in isolation from other forces. Thus, educational
researchers will often investigate a single classroom or
school because such a case represents some unusual
qualities in which they are interested (Stake 1995).
Finally, the single case is sometimes chosen because
it represents a special illustration of the phenomenon
under investigation. Sometimes it is portrayed as the
exception to the rule, or deviant case, thereby permitting
the observer to understand some more general
phenomenon in greater depth.
3. How to Choose Cases
Great care must be exercised in the choice of the single
case. Sometimes social scientists believe that any case
may be used to explore a particular phenomenon.
Indeed, there appears to have been a great deal of
faulty case study research because there are few
guidelines by which to select the case. In fact, the
choice must always involve certain critical decisions in
advance of the data collection and analysis.
First and foremost, the researcher must decide the
grounds for selecting a particular unit for study. Since
such selection is never based upon issues of statistical
inference, the theoretical reasons for selecting the case
must always be made clear—or, at least, as clear as
possible—in advance of the research. For example, the
sociologist R. Stephen Warner believed that broad
societal changes might have a deep influence on the life
of churches in America. Thus, he chose to focus on a
single church, and to examine how the internal
organization of the church changed over several
decades during which there was marked change in
American society. Second, the researcher should
choose those cases that will furnish the clearest tests of
the theory, or argument, in question. If a researcher is
interested in the causes of revolution, then a society
should be chosen where there has been a substantial
and marked revolution, to examine the possible
causes.
3.1 What Qualifies as a Case?
Unlike certain forms of research method, such as the
sample survey, case study research can employ very
different units of analysis on which to focus its
theoretical attention. The earliest examples of case
studies were often in-depth studies of particular social
roles, designed to explore the nature of such roles.
Other famous case studies have been done of entire
cities, including the range of different people and
organizations in such cities. More recently, social
researchers have studied specific organizations using
the case study format; specific locales designed to
understand the nature of social groups in those locales;
and even specific indiiduals whose traits exemplify
special qualities for investigation (Stake 1995). In
addition, the case is sometimes used very effectively to
explore in rich detail the nature of social processes at
work. One of the best illustrations of using the case
study in this manner was done by the political scientist,
Matthew Crenson (1971). He furnished a number of
important insights into the nature and exercise of
power, including the dynamics of agenda-setting,
simply from the study of how political decisions were
made in a single city.
4. The Case Study as a Strategy of Research
By comparison with other research methods, the case
study has certain limitations. It does not permit the
easy and refined manipulation of variables in the same
way as an experiment does. Nor does it permit a
researcher to investigate various configurations of
variables that might be associated with particular
outcomes, or dependent variables, like the sample
survey. Most often, the case study is done using
qualitative methods, thus resulting in some confusion
between case studies and qualitative research (Merriam
1998). Yet there are important examples in which
quantitative data also have been collected to provide
key information about the single case. For example,
some researchers have used time series data on a single
country to examine it in depth.
4.1 The Case Study as an Inductie Tool
The case study has proven most useful for the
generation of new theory. Because a single case can be
examined in great depth, and because it can be studied
with a variety of research tools, researchers can mine it
for a great deal of information. At the same time, the
careful examination of such information can furnish
insights not easily acquired by other research methods.
Therefore the case study is perhaps at its strongest
when it is used as an inductive research instrument,
allowing the researcher to construct an explanation
for the phenomenon under investigation (Glaser and
Strauss 1967).
4.2 The Case Study as a Deductie Tool
Yet, the study of the single case can also furnish an
important tool for those observers who wish to test, or
apply, deductive theories. One of the most famous
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