Case Study: Logic

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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 1510
Case Study: Logic illustrations of this occurs in the classic study of the InternationalTypographers Union(Lipset etal. 1956). The authors had concluded, both on empirical and theoretical grounds, that trade unions were characterized by very rigid and tightly closed political administrations, with one clique maintaining its rule in office over a long period of time. They then chose deliberately to examine the ITU in detail, because it appeared to be the exception to the general situation. What was it about the ITU, they asked, that produced empirically disparate results from all other trade unions? This was a powerful, well-refined question. In effect, the ITU provided a comparison to all other cases: if its outcome was different, so too must have been the set of elements that brought about such an outcome. The answer, furnished through a variety of evidence, suggested that, because of their level of education, skill, and commitment to the ITU, union members of this union, as compared to others, simply were more likely to take an active role in union affairs. The one consideration that is overlooked in using the case study as a deductive tool is that researchers may fail to specify the nature of the null hypothesis, or the likely outcome if the theory is incorrect. While mostcasestudieshavefailedtoconsiderthis important feature of theory construction and testing, Yin (1994) argues that, if done carefully, such a strategy can be incorporated easily into the analysis of single, and even multiple, cases. 5. The Case Study: Seminal Illustrations Over the years there have been a number of very significant case studies. Two, in particular, illustrate the wide variety of uses to which case study analysis can be put in the study of social phenomena. One of the first, and surely most famous, case studies was done of the city of Muncie, Indiana (Lynd and Lynd 1929). Conducted during the course of the 1920s, the investigators and their research team wanted to uncover the full nature of a typical American city over the course of its lifetime. Part of their work involved tracing the history of the city. A large part, however, involved the collection of a wide range of information on the city’s current residents, organizations, and its internal workings. There were a variety of important discoveries, including discoveries about the nature of work life and religious life in the community, as well as about the dominance of a leading industrial family over the entirerangeofcivicandpoliticallifeofthecommunity. It might be noted that sample surveys of city residents, or demographic data about them, would never have uncovered the full and complex portrait the Lynds were able to construct through their pioneering case study research. A second famous case study was done of men who lived in the South End of Boston (Whyte 1943). This study, also conducted in the 1930s, was ostensibly an examination of a group of impoverished men, and how they adapted to life during the Great Depression. In fact, as Whyte so brilliantly showed, it really was a case study of a small group of men, and the way in which the nature of stratification emerged within the group, and how it influenced the behavior of individuals. It was done with great insight and care by Whyte, making it still one of the best and most influential case studies of all time. 6. Issues of Theoretical Specification: The Use of Singular Cases to Illuminate General Principles Sometimes the study of the single case is done specifically to reveal the importance of a special configuration, or confluence, of elements that together help to explain the unique outcome of a case, and its difference from the general pattern (Campbell 1975). The logic underlying the analyst’s concern is that the set of variables together constitutes the sufficient, perhaps even singular, explanation for a particular outcome, or effect. The research on the International Typographers Union by Lipset et al. (1956), for instance, pointed to the special configuration of conditions in the ITU that helped to promote internal democracy. It suggested that the special confluence of factors promoted democracy, leading to the obvious conclusion that only under certain special social and historical circumstances could such variables again come together in such a specific manner. 7. Issues of Theoretical Generalization and Refinement: The Use of Parallel and Different Cases Because the analysis of a single case can only take the analyst so far, the best rule to follow, if possible, is to examine at least three or four pertinent cases in depth. Multiple cases permit the researcher to refine and develop theoretical arguments, and they do so precisely because case studies permit the researcher to examine cases deeply and, ultimately, to make careful comparisons among those cases. One example will illustrate the advantages of using several cases and examining them in depth. Orum (1995) was interested in examining various theories about the origins of urban growth. Popular theories had suggested that such growth came about because of special alliances among the leading figures in different major institutional spheres, particularly local government, business, and the media. Orum suggested that such theories were limited only to contemporary circumstances and that they did not help much to explain the sources of growth in the past. Using several different cases, and studying them in great depth permitted him to come up with several important discoveries bearing upon issues of urban growth and expansion. 1511
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