Adherence to case-study method in students’ final thesis

Abstract

Case study is one the most frequently employed social research strategies. In this paper we analyze 25 final works, picked at random, that were written by the students of “X” College (Vilnius) in the year of 2013. The case studies analyzed were from the domains of Economics, Law, and Business. In this study, we did not attempt to analyze how students understand the case-study method, or how they decide to choose this particular approach to scientific inquiry. Instead, we focus on how strictly students adhere to the method when conducting a research which, as they declare (or that can be naturally inferred), is a case-study. The findings reveal that, in most projects, the main scientific instrument used is actually a survey, conducted in a particular institution; and any broader contextualization is largely missing. This can be interpreted as a rather narrow understanding and very limited application of the case-study method. We hope that these findings will inform future quality-improvement initiatives at the College, and will also give rise to further scientific inquiry in this direction.