Case Studies | What is the case method, anyway?
In 2000, the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy published a guide for professors looking to bring the case study method to their classroom, called “The ABCs of Case Teaching.” Prepared by Vicki L. Golich, Mark Boyer, Patrice Franko, and Steve Lamy — all pioneers in the case study field — the guide presented a comprehensive assessment of how professors can systematically deploy the case study method in their classroom.
In the second part of our series spotlighting the book’s key insights, we look at the ins and outs of the case study method.
The case method is not mysterious. Its pedagogic underpinnings are straightforward.
In international relations, cases explore diplomatic negotiations on the eve of war or peace, crises in foreign policy decision-making, military actions with unintended consequences, politically complex trade disputes and financial accords, international legal tangles, or global environmental dilemmas.
Cases need not be restricted to narrative descriptions of major events in world history; they can be any slice of shared reality that compels students to come to terms with “multi-layered problems seen from multiple perspectives.” For example, a case could be a pile of wreckage from an aircraft accident, a limestone cave system under a western aquifer, or an octogenarian bricklayer with chest pains. What caused the crash? How were these caves formed? And why is this man suffering shortness of breath and constriction of the chest muscles? — such decision-forcing questions establish direct and immediate intercourse between the mind of the student and the subject-matter of interest.
Read more on using case studies in your classroom from Kelly McFarland and Vanessa Lide.
The case teacher’s task is to “frame” the case with questions that compel students to “inhabit” the case in that they must seek the best available answer under similar decision- making constraints as those prevalent in the “real” event.
Students assume a large measure of responsibility for both course content and the learning process. As they proceed through their collaborative deliberations, they not only discover facts and principles germane to the assigned specimen, but they also begin to reflect on and discover facts and principles ger- mane to the investigative process itself.
Students assume a large measure of responsibility for both course content and the learning process.
As they “unpack” the case, they seek a collective answer to “What is the essential nature and significance of the specimen?” Meanwhile, they are also busy with questions like, “What are the properties of a good analysis?,” and “What constitutes acceptable argumentation?” Despite the frequent temptation to do other- wise, a case teacher refuses to cheat students by giving away the answers, recognizing the powerful learning that occurs when students discover and construct their own knowledge base.
The point is made by a study carried out by the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company that concludes that students retain 10% of what they read; 26% of what they hear; 30% of what they see; 50% of what they see and hear; 70% of what they say; and 90% of what they say and do.[1]
From the very first day, a case teacher carefully builds an intellectual acceleration chamber within which class deliberation is sparked and becomes self-sustaining. The teacher creates an intellectual chain reaction that requires and welcomes participation from everyone in order to reach intellectual critical mass. If the control rods are removed too soon or unevenly, then the reaction may accelerate beyond all reclamation. If controls are never removed or are not removed in the right sequence, the reaction may never become truly self-sustaining.
For these reasons, C. Roland Christensen claims that “discussion teaching is the art of managing spontaneity” — an art requiring every teacher to achieve a “dual instructional competency”:
The responsibilities may be difficult to appreciate at first. For example, effective preparation for discussion classes takes more time, because instructors must consider not only what they will teach, but also whom and how. And the classroom encounter consumes a great deal of energy; simultaneous attention to process (the flow of activities that make up a discussion) and content (the material discussed) requires emotional as well as intellectual engagement. Effective discussion leadership requires competency in both areas; it can be achieved only with patience.
As Christensen suggests, a rather sobering observation attends the dual competency requirement: far from being a labor-saving technique, the case method involves extra work for any educator who attempts its proper application. Creating a viable case course means that topic sequencing, lesson allocation, and course policies complement and are comple- mented by case discussion.
A teacher must also select just the right number of cases, ensure those cases are integrated into the general flow of the course, and see to the selec- tion of the best available case for pre-identified course objectives. Moreover, the teacher must make allowance in the course for opportunities to conduct a post-mortem assessment of case effectiveness so that real-time adjustments to the case list and topic sequencing can take full advantage of benefits harvested from active discussion.
As such, the case method can make for an engaging classroom experience, but requires careful preparation, thorough planning, and deft execution to succeed.
Sources:
[1] Quoted in James E. Stice, “Using Kolb’s Learning Cycle to Improve Student Learning,” Engineering Education, Vol. 77, №5 (February 1987), pp. 291–96.
