ED299914 HE021907

 

Title: Case Study Research in Education. A Qualitative Approach.
Author(s): Merriam, Sharan B.
Pages: 246
Publication Date: 1988
ISBN: 1-55542-108-3
Available from: Document Not Available from EDRS.
Availability: Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers, P.O. Box 44305, San Francisco, CA 94144-4305 ($21.95).
Language: English
Document Type: Book (010); Guides--General (050)
Geographic Source: U.S.; Georgia
Journal Announcement: RIEMAR1989

A practical guide for designing and carrying out qualitative case study in education is provided. How-to advice for managing all phases of case study research is included. The focus is on case studies that draw from what is commonly known as the qualitative research paradigm rather than a quantitative, positivistic, experimental orientation. Three sections discuss the following: (1) foundations of qualitative case study research (the case study approach to research problems, types and uses of case study research in education, defining a research problem and selecting a case, and handling theory and literature reviews in case study research); (2) mastering qualitative data collection methods (conducting effective interviews, being a careful observer, and mining data from documents); and (3) analyzing and reporting case study data (the components of data analysis, using special techniques and computers to analyze qualitative data, dealing with validity, reliability, and ethics in case study, and writing the case study report). Contains 160 references. (SM)

Descriptors: *Case Studies; Data Analysis; Data Collection; Evaluation Methods; Field Interviews; Field Studies; Higher Education; Literature Reviews; *Qualitative Research; *Research Methodology