How to Use Cases to Teach: Case Analysis - A Student’s Perspective - LI8

For week 9 learning item I will look at the article about case studies and the way they can be used in practice. The case studies provide students with the opportunity to deal with actual situations faced by decision makers. Students learn to analyse these situations and develop action plans in a controlled, non-threatening environment. There are several points involved in the case study analysis. Case studies allow students to analyse, interpret, discern and prioritise complex information. Also, different alternatives can be considered and students are invited to make recommendations on how to deal with a certain problem rather than solely discuss already presented solution as some other studies do.

As I have never really planned my case study analysis, I found it useful that this paper offers a few steps and hints on how to effectively analyse case studies. First of all, it is suggested that readers quickly read the case study in order to get a general idea of what the case is about. In that way, students will be able to interconnect different parties from the case study and start to form some ideas and initial conclusions. Thereafter, it is suggested that students are split into groups and that different active roles are assigned to each group. As mentioned earlier, case studies are not about understanding what led to the problem and then trying to suggest what could have been done differently, but they seek active cooperation within the group and look for the solution itself. Two last parts of the analysis involve slow second reading and conclusion and presentation of ideas.

Being more specific, case study consists of different elements. It is important that all problems and issues are drawn out which then allows for thorough analysis. After the discussion students will start to suggest possible solutions to the case study. At this point, case study analysis reached its tipping point where members of the group need to decide which solution should be presented as the best. This stage can involve a lot of arguments where different individuals offer opposing standpoints. However, one alternative has to be chosen in order to allow for the final stage to take place. In the final stage, students need to think about the action plan and recommend which changes should be implemented. To reemphasise, when developing the action plan we need to bear in mind that we are addressing what to do now, NOT what it should have been done.

To sum up, I have learned and experienced that case studies can be a stimulating, challenging and often inspiring lively debate. Like these blogs and learning items, I believe that active participation and analysis offer much more than traditional learning methods. People can learn more and remember more for longer periods of time. Likewise, the skills of debate and persuasion can be learned and to succeed in being as rational as possible can prove to be a huge benefit in real life situations. The only thing I would add is that there are always free riders and group case study analysis allows for this more than some individual methods of learning. Organisations should definitely make use of case studies as they test the participants on the spot and can especially be useful if there is a tested solution as a benchmark. Case studies allow for failure and encourage collaboration which, both key components of every organisation.

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