Case Study Method

Where did it come from?

In 1912, James Lorrain Smith of the University of Edinburgh introduced the case study method as an approach to teaching pathology. Students were given the opportunity to look at the clinical records of patients including the signs and symptoms of disease and later compare their findings to postmortem reports. Harvard Business School adopted this method of teaching in 1920 and later many business, law, and medical schools integrated case studies into their curriculum (Thistlethwaite, 2012).

Why use Case Studies?

Case studies are realistic stories that encourage the student to use high level cognitive thought processes and both inductive and deductive reasoning and link theory to practice. Use of case studies help students to develop skills in analysis, synthesis, evaluation and application. A case study also provides an opportunity to consider ethical questions during the decision making process (Nilson, 2010). Studies (Casotti, Beneski & Knabb, 2013; Cronin, 2014; Thistlethwaite, 2012) suggest students enjoy learning through case studies and believe they prepare them for professional practice.

What’s my role as an instructor?

The instructor selects the type of case to be analyzed. Bullet cases of a few sentences or mini cases of one or two paragraphs are suited to in-classroom use. Longer continuous cases describe a situation that unfolds over time with multiple elements and are well suited as an out of class assignment.

Must it be an individual or group assignment?

A case study assignment lends itself to individual and group work. If assigning a case study to a group you may assign one for the entire group to work on jointly or have each student in the group answer a different question or you may wish to have half the student’s work on solutions and the other half on preventions.

How do I prepare my students?

Instructors generally lecture or assign topical reading to allow students an opportunity to learn the specific knowledge they will need to acquire prior to a case analysis. Providing students with guiding questions is also helpful. Nilson (2010) suggests asking students to 1- define the problems, 2- list the solutions and 3-determine the steps that need to be taken to prevent the problem from occurring again.

Teaching Tip

Many commercial case studies are in print and available for purchase. Videotaped dramatizations may also be purchased and used in classrooms or web-based courses. However, if you are a good storyteller you may wish to write your own case study to emphasize the concepts you wish students to learn as part of the course outcome.

Critique and Controversy

1-Students may not take the time to thoroughly read a case study prior to class, necessitating a waste of class time for reading.

References

 

  Casotti, G., Beneski, J. T., & Knabb, M. T. (2013). Teaching physiology online: successful use of case studies in a graduate  course. AJP: Advances in Physiology Education, 37(1), 65–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.1152/advan.00159.2012

  Cronin, C. (2014). Using case study research as a rigorous form of inquiry. Nurse Researcher, 21(5), 19-27. http://dx.doi.org/10.7748/nr.21.5.19.e1240

  

  Nilson, L. B., (2010). Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

  

  Thistlethwaite, J., Davies, D., Ekeocha, s., Kidd, J. M., Macdougall, C., Matthews, P., & ... Clay, D. (2012). The effectiveness of case-based learning in health professional education. A BEME systematic review: BEME Guide No. 23, Medical Teacher, 34(6), e421-e444. http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/0142159x.2012.680939