Case Study

Case Study Research Design

When designing a case study, a researcher begins by developing research questions that address the purpose and scope of the study. In case studies, research questions frequently focus on exploring how or why a particular phenomenon occurs. Researchers may begin to develop research questions by examining existing literature on a particular topic, identifying studies that have concluded with new questions or areas of future research, or by focusing on a problem or issue of interest. Crafting research questions helps the researcher narrow the boundaries of the study and choose the case to be examined.

Case selection varies from broad to specific. Researchers may choose to examine an individual, small group, organization, or a particular event, community, or relationship. Oftentimes cases are current, ongoing issues that are bounded by place and time. When examining a case, researchers may focus on specific instances within the case, or the overall case itself. Likewise, the researcher may choose to focus on a single case, or multiple cases that can be analyzed and compared.

There are various reasons for choosing a single-case research design. For example, a researcher may want to focus on a critical case that allows a theory to be extended. Another reason for a single-case design is when the researcher wants to focus on an extreme case that can be used to draw attention to unique circumstances. By contrast, a single-case design can be used to highlight a typical case. Other reasons researchers choose a single-case [Page 118]design is to provide a revelatory case through in-depth data collection and to conduct a longitudinal case study to show how a case develops over time.

A multiple-case design, on the other hand, is appropriate when the researcher wants to compare and contrast across cases. For example, a health communication researcher could use two case studies for contrasting strategies for developing a community wellness campaign.

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