Case Method

Abstract

This note describes the case method, its pros and cons, and its demands on both the instructor and the student.

Excerpt

UVA-PHA-0032

CASE METHOD

Case method is instruction that utilizes descriptions of actual situations to develop a discussion among students and instructor. These case descriptions are usually written, but they may be oral as well. The intent of the case method is to narrow the gap between theory and practice by giving students more or less accurate previews of the kinds of situations they will encounter, to press them to analyze those situations, to come to a conclusion, and then to defend that conclusion among their peers. Cases were used early in medical instruction and then in law. The technique was borrowed for use in business instruction early in the 20th century.

In a typical case-method course, students read a written case in advance of each class. The case may or may not be accompanied by a “technical” note that introduces theory or an analytical framework that the students can apply to the case. Sometimes the theory is given in lectures either before, during, or after the case discussion or through readings in various texts. Students are expected to read the case in advance, analyze it, reach a conclusion, and then come to class prepared to join with their classmates in an active debate of the issues in—or related to—the case.

Although many schools use cases to varying degrees, the Harvard Business School, the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia, and Western Ontario University in Canada are generally recognized as the primary case-oriented institutions in North America. These institutions use cases in over 90% of their classes. Other business schools at Stanford, Dartmouth, Northwestern, and Wake Forest use cases for a part of their curricula.

There is no one case method. Rather, a range of techniques often fall under the conversational use of the term. Perhaps the most clarifying taxonomy is Dooley and Skinner's, where the proportion of talking—instructor versus student—is used to create a classification scheme of case use. In “classic case method,” the instructor may speak from 0% to 15% of the time. In other classes designated by their instructors as “case method,” because they use a written case as a basis for the class, the instructor may speak up to or more than 90% of the time. And some instructors will vary the proportion of teacher-talk versus student-talk over the breadth of a course or course module, depending on student preparation and objectives. In my view, classes in which the instructor speaks more than 50% of the time, even though they may be using a case or cases as illustrations or as the center of analysis, are more accurately termed discussion classes or lectures. Surely one can give a lecture where one analyzes a case and presents conclusions.

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Keywords: pedagogy, case method