Chapter 6 Study Guide

Central Question

This book serves as a guide to performing a case study, and answers the two questions: (1) when to use case study as a research method, and (2) how to conduct a case study. In answering these questions, the book covers a range of issues related to designing and conducting a case study, and walks the audience through the process of conducting a case study: plan, design, prepare, collect, analyze and report. He attempts to fill the gap of well-documented procedures for how to conduct a case study.

When to Use Case Studies

Case studies allow researchers to focus on a “case” with a holistic and real-world perspective. Contrary to the beliefs of many social scientists, case studies are appropriate in explanatory phase, not just

The first and most important question for choosing a method is the type of question asked, according to Yin. These questions are made up of “substance” (topic) and “form” (who, what, where, when, how, or why). Case studies answer research questions with the form of “how” and “why”. Under the other two conditions, case studies should be used in studies that examine contemporary events, but where relevant behaviors cannot be manipulated.

Before beginning a case study, Yin argues, researchers must first be ready to explain and illustrate their devotion to following a rigorous methodology, and understand the strengths and limitations of case

The book attempts to provide alternative ways of reporting the data. Yin also attributes much of the concern about case studies being time consuming to confusing case studies with the data collection methods: participant-observation and ethnography. Case studies do not need to use either of those methods.

Fifth, researchers are unclear about the comparative advantage of using it over other research methods. Yin claims that case studies can provide insight that other methods, such as randomized control trials cannot. These other methods often cannot answer “why” or “how”. He states that case studies can complement quantitative methods.

How to Conduct a Case Study

Designing Case Studies Yin sees the research design as “the logic that links the data to be collected (and conclusions to be drawn) to the initial questions of study”. Researchers can strengthen their design with theory, and use theoretical propositions to generalize their findings to other situations. The design should include the following:

1. “a case study’s questions;

2. its propositions, if any;

3. its unit(s) of analysis;

4. the logic linking the data to the propositions;