Case Study Research
Also known as: Vaka Çalışması (Case Study), case study design, case study methodology
Case study research is a qualitative research design that investigates a specific phenomenon, individual, group, organisation, or event in depth within its real-world context. Systematised by Robert K. Yin in 1984, it supports single-case and multiple-case designs and draws on multiple data sources — interviews, observation, documents, and artefacts — to build a rich, contextualised account of a bounded unit.
Key highlights
- Enables deep, contextualised understanding of complex phenomena that surveys or experiments cannot capture.
- Flexible data-source mix — interviews, observation, documents, artefacts — supports rich triangulation.
- Works when the accessible population is very small or when only one revelatory case exists.
- Supports theory building and theory testing through analytical generalisation.
- Appropriate across social, educational, business, health, and policy disciplines.
Intuition
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How it works
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When to use it
Case study research is appropriate when the research question takes the form 'how' or 'why', when events cannot be experimentally controlled, and when understanding context is as important as understanding outcome. It fits exploratory, descriptive, and explanatory purposes across social, educational, health, business, and policy domains. It can accommodate as few as one case; transferability, not statistical generalisation, is the standard of rigour. If the goal is to estimate population-level frequencies or to test a causal hypothesis with control, survey-based or experimental designs are more appropriate.
Strengths & limitations
- Enables deep, contextualised understanding of complex phenomena that surveys or experiments cannot capture.
- Flexible data-source mix — interviews, observation, documents, artefacts — supports rich triangulation.
- Works when the accessible population is very small or when only one revelatory case exists.
- Supports theory building and theory testing through analytical generalisation.
- Appropriate across social, educational, business, health, and policy disciplines.
- Findings cannot be statistically generalised to populations; analytical generalisation requires explicit theorising.
- Data collection and analysis are time-intensive, especially with multiple sources and cases.
- Results depend heavily on the researcher's interpretive skill and are susceptible to confirmation bias without active rival-explanation testing.
- Replication across cases or by independent researchers is difficult compared to quantitative designs.
Common pitfalls
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Applications
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Frequently asked
How many cases do I need?
A single case is legitimate when it is revelatory, extreme, or critical for a theoretical proposition. Multiple cases follow a replication logic — each case is treated as a separate study, and cross-case comparison tests whether the same pattern appears under different conditions. The number of cases is determined by theoretical saturation, not statistical power.
Can case study research generalise?
Not statistically. The appropriate standard is analytical generalisation: the researcher shows how the findings confirm, extend, or challenge a theoretical proposition. This is the same logic a scientist uses when a single experiment is interpreted in relation to theory.
What makes a case study rigorous?
Rigour rests on four criteria identified by Yin: construct validity (multiple sources of evidence, chain of evidence), internal validity for explanatory studies (pattern matching, rival explanations), external validity (replication logic across cases, explicit theoretical propositions), and reliability (case study protocol, case study database).
How is case study different from ethnography or narrative analysis?
All three are qualitative designs that study bounded units in context, but their emphasis differs. Ethnography centres on cultural immersion over an extended period and prioritises the insider perspective. Narrative analysis focuses on how individuals story their experience over time. Case study research is broader in its unit of analysis — it can be an organisation, event, or programme — and explicitly targets 'how' or 'why' questions through multi-source triangulation and analytical generalisation to theory.
Sources
- 1.Yin, R.K. (2018). Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods (6th ed.). Sage.ISBN 978-1506336169
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Cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 1). Case Study. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/qualitative/case-study