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Case-study and the Social
Philosophy of Educational
Research
BARRY MACDONALD
AND ROB WALKER
CARE
University of East Anglia
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The methodological difficulties faced by curriculum evaluators
who want to offer a comprehensive range of information about
new programmes have drawn them to the case-study as a tech-
nique. Many of the quite legitimate questions that are put to
evaluators, especially by teachers, cannot be answered by the
experimental methods and numerical analyses that constitute the
. instrumental repertoire of conventional educational research.
Such questions are directed at the experience of the participants,
and at the nature and variety of transactions which characterise
the learning milieu of the programme. There seems to be a need
to find ways of portraying this experience and this milieu so that
•prospective users of new programmes can relate them to their
own experience, circumstances, concerns and preferences. The
•
case-study is one such way, and evaluators have been prominent
among those who are beginning to advocate, and explore in
practice, its fruitfulness in educational enquiry. The purpose of
this brief paper is to examine the pedigree of the case-study as
a research method, to draw attention
s
to features of our educa-
tional system which pose problems for the conduct of case-study,
and to suggest some guidelines for its use in education.
Case-study is the examination of an instance in action. The
choice of the word 'instance' is significant in this definition, be-
cause it implies a goal of generalisation. We might say that case-
.
study is that form of research where n=1, only that would be
misleading, because the case-study method lies outside the
•
discourse of mathematical experimentalism that has dominated
- -
Anglo-American educational research.
It is difficult to account for the neglect of the case-study as a
general method of educational science, especially in view of its
Barry MacDonald is
Director
and
Rob
Walker Senior Research
Associate
of the
Ford Project on Success and Failure and Recent
•
innovation (Ford
SAFARI) at C.A.R.E.
and in Hamilton et al (eds) Beyond the Numbers Game, MacMillan
1977, and in The Urban Review, New York, 1977, and in Case Study Meth
ERM881 (Deakin University) and Case Study in Education: ED826 (Univers
of Queensland), Deakin University Press 1982.
•
•
•
.•
-
.
CASE-STUDY AND THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
Carry MacDonald
and
Rob Walker
Ford SAFARI Project
Centre for Applied Research in Education
University of East Anglia
The methodological difficulties
,
faced by curriculum evaluators who want
to offer a comprehensive range of information about new programmes have
qrawn them to the case•study as a technique.' Many of the quite legitimate
questionS
that are put to evaluators, especiallytby
teachers, cannot
be answered by the experimental methodivand numerical analyses that
constitute the instrumental repertoire of conventional educational research.
Such questions are directed at the. experience of the participants, and
at the nature and variety of transeCtions which characterise the
learning milieu of the programme. There seems to be a need to find ways
of portraying this experience and this milieu so that prospective users
of new programmes can relate them to their own experience:, circumstances,
concerns and.preferences. The case-study is one such way,
and
evaluators
have been proMinent
ameng
those who are beginning to advocate, and explore
in practice, its fruitfulness 'in educational enquiry: The purpose of this
brief paper is to examine the pedigree of the case-study as a research
method,' to
draw'attention to(featurPs of our edunational.system which
pose problems for the conduct of case-study, and to suggest some
guidelines for its use in education.
•
Case-study is the examination of an instance in action. The choice of
the word 'instance' is. significant in this definition, because it implies
a. goal of generalisation. We might
thay
that case-study is that form of
research where n=1, only that would be misleading, because the case-study
method has outside the discourse of mathematical experimentalism that
has dominated Anglo-American educational research.
It is difficult to account for the neglect of the case-study as a general
method of educational science, especially in view of its significant role
in the history of learning theory. An adequate explanation would need to
embrace the follOwing considerations: aspirations to the status of the
natural sciences via the adoption of their alleged'paradigm, bureaucratic
demands for actuarial data susceptible to policy manipulation, genuine
scepticism about the research value of the approach, and the late arrival
on the educational scene of research practitioners with relevant shills.
But there is another reason' for this neglect, one which has status
implications, but which poses a dilemma for the aspiring educational
scientist in a curious form. It has to do with the fact
that
the kind
of case-studies which we believe education needs have characteristics
which call for a fusion of the styles of the artist and the scientist.
When Freud said, "It still strikes me myself as strange that the case-
histories I write should read like short
stories
and that as one might
say, they lack the serious stamp of science",
1
he caught the unease of
2.
the researcher who, disdaining the 'safety'of numbers', discovers that.
his data is most effectively expressed in a mode which is generically
associated with the artist.
Although this comesas a surprise to the scientist who adopts this
approach, and generally a disconcerting one, it is a logical consequence
of his field of vision. Case-study is the way of the artist,who achieves
greatness when, through the portrayal of a single instance locked in time
and circumstance, he communicates enduring truths about the human
condition. For both scientist and artist, content and intent emerge in
form. There have been periods in art, especially in the novel, when
the artist has consciously aspired to 'scientific' generalisation. Writers
of the French naturalist school, such as Zola, created characters to
represent the social type, and blurred the lines between literal truth
and special pleading by carefully researching the factual settings
of their fictional puppets. The naturalists were part of an intellectual
movement in French society which encompassed the sciences as well as the
arts, a movement which had no parallel In this country. It is interesting
to ponder,/therefore, the significance of one school of British
television dramatists whose Preference for documentary style, accurate
research, and 'representative'. heroes, owes nothing to the legacy of
a native 'comic' tradition, and may constitute a take-overbid bythem
for an area neglected by the social scientist. Fusion, or confusion?
If we are not simply to ignore this new 'pseudo-science', perhaps we
might begin by examining carefully the ,case for the case-Study, and
elaborating some rules which could effectiVely discipline its use in
educational research.
As a method of research, the cape-study commands a respected place in
the repertoire of thedry builders from a Wide range of disciplines;
medicine, law, engineering, psychology and anthropology areexamples:
The case can generate a theory as well as test one; instance and
abstraction go hand In hand in an iterative proceas of cumulative growth.
The instance may be a patient with a particular ailment, a verdict, a
bridge, a chimpanzee, or A whole community, but the research aim is the
same - to reveal properties
of
the class to which the instance belongs.
"When' we read Malinowsii we get the impression that he is
stating something of general importance. Yet how can this
.
be?
He is simply writing about the Trobriand Islanders. SoMehow he
has so assimilated hiMself into the Trobriand situation that he
is able to make the Trobriands a microcosm of the whole
primitive world."
(Leach) 2
Clearly representativeness is an important-consideration. In fields
where individual variation within a'class is limited, as in medical
diagnosis or in the social anthropology of non-literate peoples, case-study
is widely accepted as a valid, basis of generalisation, and adopted with
Confidence. PsYchopathology is an interesting area where the issue of
cultural specificity continues to dog the theories Freud based on
case-studies of the Viennese bourgoisie.' Nevertheless, the truth remains
that, in a very important sense, we are all Freudians now.
3.
Case-study methods are rarely spelled out in advance, except in the
most general of terms, and apprenticeship is theeusual means of
induction into its techniques. In the social sciences, as in bank
robberies, the method of attack is characteristically a opportunistic
response to the observed nature of the case. The sociologist White,
looking back on his research plans for the study of Cornerville, remarks:
"It seems to me that the most impressive thing about them is their
remoteness from the actual study I carried out".
More experienced
practitioners may deflect questions about methoil with
Ome
panache,
Alan Deals
a
an anthropologist, writes, "In 1952, on the way to India,
I asked a distinguished British anthropologist the secret of his
success in doing fieldwork. His response was, "Never accept free
housing, and always carry a supply of marmalade". Dut for those with
less established reputations, doubt, and unease are endemic. Thus
Dollard: "Many times during the conduct of the research and the
arrangement of the material, I have had a bad conscience on the score
of mothod Should the researcher expect to be believed if he cannot
hook his findings inte.the number system end present them,in a manner
conventional in the physical sciences?" (Do117d, 1937)." Dollard
subsequently came under pressure from the experimentalists on
methodológical grounds', but though he applied himself lengthily to
psychophysical methods thereafter, he still maintained (Dollard 1957)
that case-study method in the social sciences must follow a different
path. "Not every nth person Can be a friend." •
Problems of Case-Studying Social Action
Despite Dollard's flight to numerical methods, it is a mistake to think that
'a,majOr distinction between experimental and case-study research has lain
in the area of quantification. In fact, the case-study worker is typically
much
mor6
quantitative than is appreciated. Becker writes:
"The observer, possessing many provisional, problems, concepts
and indicators .
. wishes to know which of these are worth
pursuing as major foci of his study. He does this, in part,
by discovering if
—
the events that prompted their development
are typical and wideSpread, and by seeing how these events
are distributed among categories of people and organisational
sub-units. He reaches conclusions that are essentially
quantitative, using them to describe the organisation he is
studying,"
7
Much more to the point is the fact that, whereas experimental method
is conceptually asocial, the most important feature of case-study in
the human sciences is that it is pursued via s social process and
leads to a social product. Although this is of course true of all human
research, in case-study the process is significantly more intimate, the
product more directly consequential for those involved, A list of the
problems which the case-study worker encounters includes therefore:
-
Problems of the researcher becoming involved in the issues, events
or situations under study:
-
Problems over confidentiality of data.
•
-
Problems stemming from competition from different interest groups
for access to and control over the data.
4.
-
'Problems concerning publication, such as the need to preserve
anonymity of subjects.
-
Problems arising from the audience being unably to distinguish
data from the researcher's interpretation of the date.
And prior to these, although linked to them, there is the problem
of how to gain access to the data. The investigator of social
meShanisms is seldom free to follow Dacon's dictum for Natural
Sciences,. "to-put Nature to the question", or, as Collingwood put
it in laying a slmlar duty upon his historical method, "to compel
Nature to answer".
For the observational scientist there is no
'command performance'. He must find vantage points and roles within
a web of human relationships without destroying the fabric. The
delicacy and subtlety of his instruments is a pre-condition of
their validity, especially in those situations where consciousness
Of the researcher's purposes evokes behavioural
-
illusions designed
to
protect self-serving images. Educational situations are typically
of this kind. Indeed, education is a field which is likely to raise
in an
-
acute form most of the problems endemic to case-study research.
This being
.
correct , we would argue that case--studies in education
need to be conceived and cnnducted in new ways if they are to gain
widespread acceptability.
The Social Philosophy of Educational Case-Studies
Case-study research is used occasionally in education but mostly in
an 'autocratic' mode. That IS to say the problems listed in the previous
.
section are perceived as 'technical' issues, irritating obstructions
to the scientists uncompromising pursuit of new knowledge. • The study is
typically conceived as a piece of 'pure' research directed to an audience of
research professionals. The interpretations made are essentially the
interpretations of the researcher. The responsibility for the final
account
is his alone. The researcher's right to control his work in these
ways has not been seriously questioned. We believe it is time'to question
it now. The critical issues which emerge in this reappraisal can be posed
quite simply:
-
to whose needs and interests does the research respond?
-
who owns the data (the researcher, the subject, the sponsor)?
-
who has access to the data? (Who is excluded or denied)?
-
what is the status of the researcher's interpretation of events,
vis-a-vis the interpretations made by others? (Who decides who tells
the truth?)
-
what obligations does the researcher owe to his subjects, his sponsors,
his fellow professionals, others?
-
who is the research for?
Research is primarily concerned
with the
creation, organisation and
dissemination of knowledge.
COnventionally, dissemination comes last
in the order:
-
In some definitions it is omitted altsgether:". We
believe that the dissemination of new knowledge
ought
to be a prior, 'not
a post, consideration in the planning and conduct of educational research.
Knowledge is the basis on which many forMs of power are legitimated, and,
in the case of education, the medium through which power is exercised.
5.
Case-study research in education takes the researcher into a complex
act of politically sensitive relationships. In a related paper (MacDonald /974)
one of the authors classified evaluation studies under three ideal types
on a political dimension. He called these types 'bureaucratic', 'autocratic'
and 'demoeratie. The principal question which determines- this •
classification is "Who controls the pursuit of new knowledge, and who has
access to it?" One of the purposes behind this paper is to
.
endorse
specifically the 'democratic' approach as particularly appropriate in
case-stlidy researcher evaluation activities using case-study techniques.
Democratic evaluation is described as follows:
"Democratic evaluation is an information service to the community
about the characteristics of an educational programme. It
recognises value Pluralism and seeks to represent a range of
interests in its issue formulation. The basic value is an informed
citizenry, and the evaluator acts as broker in eichanges of information
between differing groups. His techniques of data gathering and
presentation must be accessible to non-specialist audiences. His
main activity is the collection of definitions of, and reactions to,
the programme. He offers confidentiality to informants and.. gives
them control over his use of information. The report is non
recommendatory, and the evaluator has no concept of information
misuse. The evaluator engages in periodic negotiation of his
relationships with sponsors and programme participants. The
criterion of success
the range of audiences served. The .
report aspires to 'best. seller' Status. The key concepts of
democratic evaluation are .sonfidentiality', 'negotiation' and
'accessibility'. The key justificatory concept is the 'right
to know
1
."
9
We feel
:
there is a need to develop case-study in education within this
mode. Although the concepts and principles we will advance fall short
of this
they embody an appreach that is sharply differentiated
from past or current practice, an approach which rejects monopolistic
concepts of control and access. These concepts and principles also take
account of significant, but neglected, features of the educational system.
In this concluding section of the paper, some of these features will be
specified and related to characteristics of case-study before we present
our recommendations.
1. Sisnificant Features of the Educational System
a)
Happy alliances between theorist and practitioner in our system are rare:
more often, the relationship is one of mutual mistrust punctuated by open
antagonism. Detween sub-groups of practitioners also, and perhaps
particularly between teachers and managers, the unity of common purpose
rests on almost religious observance of territorial boundaries.
Practitioners can, however, generally rely on each other for support
when faced with
an external enemy, such as public criticism, whereas
the theorist's behaviour in such circumstances is less predictable.
b)
Partly as a consequence of this, education has a highly developed and
long standing mythology which acts as a protective public image projected
by its members. At all levels of the system what people
think
they are
doing, what they say they are doing, what they appear to others to be doing,
and what in fact
they are doing, may be sources of considerable discrepancy.
0.
This is generally as true of children in class as it is of teachers,
head teachers and administrators. Any research which threatens to
reveal these discrepancios
.
threatens to create dissonance, both
personal and political.
•
c)
There is a tradition of freedom from scrutiny by outsiders in
education (the inspectorial role being mainly benign and supportive).
d)
Educational institutions are hierarchical and competitive, for staff
and for children. Dut in our country, teachers, headmasters, inspectors
and administrators
all have similar professional qualifications, so the
hierarchy of staff is basod'oll experience and 1$ consultative. Expertise
cannot be claimed on
extrinsic criteria and used as a basis for authority.
This characteristic of the structure, allied to mythological aspects df
the culture, creates an inherent need for secrecy that is all pervasive.
Case-study research may penetrate the secrecy and so threaten the
carefully constructed claims which form the basis
of
authority.
e) The educational enterprise continuously generates its own reflective
languages. Since the process itself contains its own
-
theoretical,
analytical
e
and
descriptive constructs, this creates the potential for
presenting case-studies within the language of those studied.
2. Related Aspects of Case-
d'
a) Case-studies are public docnwents alsout individuals and events.
They are identifiable at' least to those involved and usually to
wider audiences. They have consequences for the lives of those
portrayed as well as for'the reader.
b)
Educational case-Studies are usually'financed by people who have,
directly or indirectly, power over those studied and portrayed.
•
c)
Case-study methods rely heavily on
human instruments, about which
only limited knowledge can be obtained and whose private expectations,
desires and interests may bias the study in unanticipated and
unacknowledged ways. Lack of rules for case-study leaves research
opportunities open to both real and imagined abuse.
d)
Case-studies are always partial accounts, involving selection at
every stage, from choosing cases for study to sampling events and
instances, and to editing and presenting material. Educational
case-sttnUes are almost always conducted under constraints of time
and resources and therefore reliability and validity pose eonsiderable
•
problems.
3. Proposed Guidelines
a) It seems to us feasible to contemplate a form of educational. research
that would be practice-based in a way research has not been previously.
We see this as a form of research which responds actively to
practitioners' definitions of situations, conceptual structures and
language. Constrained by these the,researcher would act as'the
representative of the various group involved, exploring their hypotheses,
7.
using their language and conceptual structures, both as starting
points and as a continuous reference. The aim would not be to
create alternative realities for practitioners but to find ways of
encouraging them to develop insight into their existing realities,
and to understand the realities of other inhabitants.
c)
We have to think in terms of 'condensed field work' ia order to feed
back information quickly enough to fit the time-scales of participants.
This cuts us off from traditions of case-study work in the social
sciences and draws us closer to other traditions in journalism,
documentary film-making and the novel. These traditions have not
systematically addressed the issues of reliability and validity which
condensed field-work will raise in acute form. Now criteria are needed.
d)
Proof is rarely obtainable in case-study research. Rather than setting
proof es a primary goal, the case-study worker should aim to increase
understanding of the variables, parameters and dynamics of the case
under study. Cross-checking rather than consistency is the main
strategy of validation. The case-study worker is guided in his
research by the pursuit of discrepancy. It ie implicit in the notion
of case-study that there ie no one true definition of the situation.
In moeial situations, truth is multiple. The case-study worker is a
collector of definitions. The collection is validated via a continuous
process of negotiation with, those involved. Wherever appropriate the
case-study should con
elie expressed reactions (unedited and unglossed)
of the principal characteee portrayed, to the report in its final draft form.
The reliability of the stude, i.e. the probability of its findings
being confirmed by replication, sees likely to be significantly
enhanced where such proceduees are adopted.
e)
Confidentiality will become a critical aspect of procedure. Confidentiality
should be accorded to informants for the term of the study and,
thereafter, release of material for publication negotiated with them.
The nature of case-study is such that participants can often only judge
the consequences of release in retrospect and when the content of
presentation is available. Offering blanket confidentiality affords
the researcher faster access to relevant data and prevents the need for
informants to continuously monitor what they say. This is especially
critical in interview situations, for in the hands of a skilled interviewer
most people are inexperienced and will reveal things
they
did not intend.
Allowing retrospective control of editing and release of data to
informants affords them some protection from the penetrative power of
the research as well as allowing the researcher to check on misinterpretation
or misunderstanding on his part.
This sharing of control over data with participants does mean that the
researcher often has to face the fact that some of his finest data is lost,
diluted or permanently consigned to the files. On the other hand his
access to knowledge about what are sensitive issues to his informants
may guide his research in significant and unexpected ways.
f)
Case-study methods lend themselves to a variety of means of
presentation; written reports, audio-visual recordings, displays,and
exhibitions. Generally, these presentations should be devoid of
indications of praise or blame from the point of view of the
researcher.
They should present contingency relationships only, leaving it to
those studied and other audiences, to infer cause. They should attempt
to be explicit about rationale and procedure, and the principles
governing the selection and presentation of content.
a .
g) The data must be accessible to the Judgement and understanding of
all those Whose interests may be influenced by its contents. If
this is not to remain at the lipseryice level,
the.
researcher may
have to explore relationships between himself and the artist.
SUMMARY
We have presented a view of case-study research in education which has
its primary focus on the political nature of relationships -between the
researcher and his subjects, sponsors, audiences and related groups.
We have emphasised such questions as who has control over, or access to
data,
and under what conditions and constraints should the
researcher
Seek and present his findings. Our recommendations are derived from a
particular socio/philosophical stance.
As we imagine and describe it, educational case-study has as yet no
practitioners. We have attempted to describe a kind of research we
feel ourselves working towards rather than one we have successfully
accomplished.
The real prize is the prospect of developing techniques and procedures
which can be used by schools and ancillary agencies. A specialist research
profession will always be a poor substitute for
.
aself-monitoring
educational community.
August 1974
REFERENCES
1.
Freud, S. "Standard Edition", Vol. 2, p. 160. Rogarth Press and the
Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1953.
2.
Leach, E R. "Rethinking Anthropology". Athlone Press, 1062.
3.
Whyte, W F. "Street Corner Society", University of Chicago Press, 1055.
4.
Deals, A. "Field Work in Eleven Cultures", edited by G Spindler.
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972.
5.
Dollard,
J.
"Caste
.
and Class, in a Southern Town". Harper, 1940.
6.
Dollard, J. op. cit. (1957 edition).
7. Becker, Howard S. "Sociological Work", Allen Lane, Penguin Press, 1071.
O. Collingwood, R J. "The Idea of History". Clarendon Press 1946. OUP,
paperback, 1961.
9. MacDonald, Larry. "Evaluation and the Control of Education", in
Curriculum Evaluation: The State of the Arty
Schools Council
Research Studies, (in press).
NOE-
.
Most of the points raised in this gaper are treated more fully by
ROD WALKER in a longer SAFARI article entitled "The Conduct of
E4ucational Case-Study: Ethics, Theory and Procedure."
