The Tao of Case Study Research

In my summer job as a research assistant, I've been doing the initial stages of some case study research that will be completed this fall.[1] I've had more leeway to shape the research and structure my own tasks than I was expecting, and I've learned a lot.

One of the things I picked on my own was the foundational reference book for conducting case studies (Yin 2003).[2] In May, I devoured the book and mapped what I knew about the project into Yin's framework. In doing so, I thought I was discovering great new truths from outside the planning/transportation mainstream. Last week, when describing the next step of choosing questions for the case study interviews, my boss made an offhand comment about how he tells his doctoral students to "embrace the Tao of Yin" -- that is, use the constraints of case study research to your advantage. So...my challenges are not original, but at least they're not trivial either.

Figure 1. Aftermath of a research brief

As I reflect on what I've done in the first three months -- the foundation for the interview questions I started brainstorming on Friday -- I'm starting to see what my boss means. You need a delicate touch to define a research question that will work well with case studies. You need to be clear about what you know, have a set schedule for developing your framework, and clearly record your propositions and units of analysis and candidate cases. But you also have to have finesse: unless you already know the answers to the questions you're asking, you'll have surprises that will make you want to expand or refocus most every part of your research. And you need to subtly redirect the questions you want to ask to fit the kind of "how" questions that case studies are best at answering, and to fit the knowledge and experiences that your subjects actually have. And that's all before you've "started" your case study -- before you've finalized your list of interviewees or the questions to ask them.

For me, this kind of balancing act between competing constraints means building up a master plan (study protocol) one section at a time, and always keeping the whole outline in view. If I had an office, everything from the grant proposal and research question down to the criteria for case selection would be posted on the wall. If my fellow researchers were as geeky as I am, there would be an authoritative wiki. For now, I'm making do with a binder and frequent reference to the key Research Briefs.

I'm starting to understand how the pieces fit together, and how to do good case study research.

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[1] I won't describe unpublished research here, but suffice it to say our unit of analysis (what we're studying) is decisions, including approvals and rejections, regarding transportation and land use projects in the U.S. And once we select about 10 cases, our units of observation (how we're studying the decisions) are background documents plus interviews with decisionmakers and other key players.

[2] Okay, okay, so my posts probably shouldn't have APA-style references. Forgive me this one? Yin, R. K. (2003). Case study research: design and methods. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.