how to write a case study paper

how to write a case study paper

How to write a case study paper

1. Introduction

The specific strategy you chose was an important goal you might tell a family member or a friend about. This is when a case study can make a real impact. It is a really good idea to plan for the future when you have time to reflect on a piece of work you’ve done or an idea you had. It is no good rushing your work at the end because case studies conducted for educational purposes are the best learning vehicles there are. Basically, a case study is an in-depth study of a particular situation rather than a sweeping statistical survey. It is a method used to narrow down a very broad field of research into one easily researchable topic. Although it is an in-depth activity, case studies can actually be conducted quite quickly if you know how to do one and are an effective way of learning lots of information, either for your own personal benefit or to disseminate information to the rest of your group.

2. Selecting a case study topic

What resources do I have? Are you taking an academic course or are you just interested? If you are taking a course, what resources do you have available to you? Should your study be local, online, will you need to interview people, or study certain books? This is good for helping you decide how broad or narrow you should make your topic.

What do I want to study? This should be your first step. You should answer the question here to narrow the topic down. The more specific, the better your study will be. For example, if you have an interest in studying the effects of crop diseases on African nations with food shortages, this could be narrowed down to one or two nations and a certain disease.

In some cases, selecting a topic may be the sole most challenging part of the whole process. When you are having a tough time figuring out what you want to study, you may want to ask yourself a few questions.

3. Conducting research and gathering data

Is the case based on previous research? Is the case going to produce new research? A common distinction is made in the literature between research that is more about the details of a particular case and research that is about generalization or theory development. It is useful to distinguish between these two kinds of research. If the case in question is about a well-known or well-documented phenomenon, it may be preferable to conduct a pilot case or a scoping exercise. On the other hand, if the case is about a very novel or complex phenomenon, it may be preferable to conduct an embedded case study. Define your research questions. This is where to start planning the case – by getting clear on what you are going to be looking at. What are the principal research questions? If the case is to be based around a single or a small number of instances, what is the unit of analysis? Do you expect to find results that can be generalized or do you have a more exploratory and inductive focus? With the research questions set, it is a good idea to write hypotheses before the research. This way it is easy to see whether the data and the conclusions match up to the aims of the study. Identify sources of evidence. This can involve a significant amount of time and resources. The case is only as good as the evidence in it, so it is vital to locate and then evaluate the best evidence possible. This may mean doing a documentary review (as mentioned above), conducting a pilot case, collecting the history from a participant, or even going to get data. Rich sources of data include (in ascending order of strength) the Internet, libraries, research, interviews, observation, and surveys. Often it is best to collect all the data you can about a single case initially (comprehensiveness) and then go on to compare the data of other similar cases (or do a cross-case comparison based on the theories or research questions you have developed from the single case).

4. Analyzing and interpreting the data

Step 3 of 4: Drawing and Verifying Conclusions. This is not proven from the data. The conclusion should remain close to the questions. It suggests linkages to causal mechanisms. This phase is still preliminary, and the questions are still undecided. At this point, there is possible preparation for another case study.

Step 2 of 4: Generalizing from the Case. This leads to a set of one or a few propositions. These can be in the form of clinical opinions, teachable lessons, or constructive speculation. The conclusions are educated guesses.

Step 1 of 4: Analyzing and Interpreting the Data. All data must be clean. Examine your data and determine whether there are any biased responses or patterns in the data that do not make sense. Check to make sure the data is relevant to your research aims. If you are using a questionnaire or structured interviews, ensure it is reliable in terms of measuring what it is supposed to measure. A good way to do this is to ask a couple of colleagues who have some knowledge of the area to assess the questions or interview schedule. This will save collecting data and realizing it proves something other than you expected. If the questioning proved unreliable, it may have changed the way you collected the data.

5. Conclusion and recommendations

To conclude, despite having few limitations during the process of collecting data and arranging time to conduct focus group interviews because of the busy schedules of the participants, I managed to find useful and crucial information in addressing the main problem of the Orphanage Home KKSG, which was the lack of students’ interest towards religious subject education. Findings suggest that the students’ interest to learn religious education is still insufficient, although they understand the importance of the subject. This is parallel with the information we received from the headmaster and The Islam Education Unit, which stated that the weekly marks of the students range from unsatisfactory to fair. Then, results obtained from the interview with Ustaz Arshad show that some of the students were influenced by the negative perception of the subject shown by their parents. He also added that it was difficult to stimulate the interest of orphans to study the subject when they are exposed to external perceptions that are in contrast to the opinion of the headmaster and The Islam Education Unit, which assume that the subject was neglected because the students are not interested. From the information obtained, I can conclude that the overall findings were satisfactory in addressing the main problem of the Orphanage Home KKSG. Based on this case study’s findings, I would like to give several recommendations to improve students’ interest toward religious subject education in the orphanage home KKSG.