How to do your Case Study
A Guide for Students and Researchers
- Gary Thomas - University of Birmingham
In this lucid, accessible and often witty new text, Gary Thomas introduces students and researchers to the basics of case study research. Using a wide range of real-life examples, this book sets out for those new to the method how best to design and carry out case studies in the social sciences and humanities
How to do your case study: a guide for students and researchers deals with the core issues and methods that anyone new to case study will need to understand:
- What is a case study?
- When and why should case study methods be used?
- How are case studies designed?
- What methods can be used?
- How do we analyse and make sense of our data?
- How do we write up and write about our case?
How to do your Case Study will be essential reading for any student or researcher in the Social Sciences, Health Sciences, in Business Studies, in Education and the Humanities.
This very readable and well crafted book should significantly advance thinking about the conduct of case study research. It impressively demonstrates, through well-selected examples, the uses of case studies within a wide range of disciplines and practical fields of study and dispels some popular misconceptions of this research genre in the process.
John Elliot
Emeritus Professor of Education, University of East Anglia
All chapters are clearly structured but with an eye for presenting variations of research designs, purposes, approaches, data collections and tools for analysis across applied social sciences and humanities. The chapters are written in a lively, engaged and personal manner - though highly academic and structured in their argumentation at the same time - and as a nice student-friendly communicative feature, each chapter finishes with a short section called "If you only take one thing from this chapter, take this..."... I can recommend Thomas' book as an inspiring and systematic companion to think and discuss with, where there is tolerance towards the wonderful variability of doing qualitative research.
Bente Halkier
Roskilde University
This particular text will replace a few “classics” on my shelf, and I plan to use the book when teaching my methodology courses.
I would recommend this valuable resource to any student conducting a case study for their Masters in Business Administration.
Excellent, clearly written book relevant to any student undertaking research in the field of nursing, where case studies are so applicable.
A recommended read for students conducting a case study for their Education MA.
a well crafted as well as inspiring volume; easy to read, with plain language which clarifies many of the practicalities around doing qualitative research; I liked its format that each chapter finishes with the section called "If you only take one thing from this chapter..."; edition would benefit by including references to up-to-date case studies into the "further reading" section
A very useful and straight forward text for those students planning this methodology for a dissertation
When doing a case study this book provides vital information to guide you through each step of the process, from the planning stages through to writing up the study.
The book should be next to you at all times during your case study as a useful tool to refer to if you are unsure at any stage.
Gary Thomas has attempted to write an accessible and jargon free text for case studies and has largely succeeded. His text is easy to read and offers a considered approach to employing qualitative research. This text should appeal to undergraduates and postgraduates engaged in research for the first time, more experienced researchers wanting a reference guide and also to lecturers or supervisors working on research methods or dissertation modules. The text is rich with examples to underpin points being made and useful inclusions are the 'If you take only one thing' at the end of each chapter providing clear and succinct pointers. The use of post-it-notes throughout the text are also very useful visual flags that emphasise important points.
Very well written in accessible language. Gives very clear parameters of case study and valuable as a companion to more general texts.