A case-study strategy ‘involves an empirical investigation of a particular contemporary phenomenon within its real life context using multiple sources of evidence’ (Yin 1994). A case is studied in its own right within a specified ‘setting’; as Miles and Huberman note, ‘we cannot study individual cases devoid of their context in a way that a quantitative researcher often does’ (1994: 27). The case itself can be virtually anything: an individual person, a group, an institution, an innovation, a service, and so on. For instance in the CRT Report Connecting technology and university teaching the case was defined as a group of individuals within one HE institution. The group was a selection of university teachers, and the institution, the University of Oxford. In this sense the case has multiple components, supplying multiple sources of evidence to tell a story about that group.
Bibliography
Miles, M. & Huberman, M. (1994) Qualitative Data Analysis. London, Sage.
- Stake, R. (1995) The Art of Case Study Research, London, SAGE.
- Yin, R. K. (2003) Case study research: design and methods. London, Sage.