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A case study involves an up-close, in-depth, and detailed examination of a subject (the case), as well as its related contextual conditions. Case studies appear with great frequency throughout popular works. Nearly anyone with an education can lay claim to having done a case study at some point in their life. Case studies also can be produced by following a formal research method. These case studies are likely to appear in formal research venues, such as journals and professional conferences, rather than popular works. The resulting body of 'case study research' has long had a prominent place in many disciplines and professions, ranging from psychology, anthropology, sociology, and political science to education, clinical science, social work, and administrative science.〔Robert K. Yin. ''Case Study Research: Design and Methods''. 5th Edition. Sage Publications. California, 2014. Pages 5-6. (ISBN 978-1-4522-4256-9 )〕 In doing case study research, the "case" being studied may be an individual, organization, event, or action, existing in a specific time and place. For instance, clinical science has produced both well-known case studies of individuals and also case studies of clinical practices.〔Suzanne Corkin. ''Permanent Present Tense: The Unforgettable Life of the Amnesic Patient, H.M.''. Basic Books. New York. 2013. ISBN 978-0-4650-3159-7〕〔Rodger Kessler & Dale Stafford. Editors. ''Collaborative Medicine Case Studies: Evidence in Practice''. Springer. New York. 2008. (978-0-3877-6893-9 )〕 However, when "case" is used in an abstract sense, as in a claim, a proposition, or an argument, such a case can be the subject of many research methods, not just case study research. Thomas offers the following definition of case study:
According to J. Creswell, data collection in a case study occurs over a "sustained period of time."〔 〕 One approach sees the ''case study'' defined as a ''research strategy'', an empirical inquiry that investigates a phenomenon within its real-life context. Case-study research can mean single and multiple case studies, can include quantitative evidence, relies on multiple sources of evidence, and benefits from the prior development of theoretical propositions. As such, case study research should not be confused with qualitative research, as case studies can be based on any mix of quantitative and qualitative data. Similarly, single-subject research might be taken as case studies of a sort, except that the repeated trials in single-subject research permit the use of experimental designs that would not be possible in typical case studies. At the same time, the repeated trials can provide a statistical framework for making inferences from quantitative data.〔Siegfried Lamnek. ''Qualitative Sozialforschung''. Lehrbuch. 4. Auflage. Beltz Verlag. Weihnhein, Basel, 2005〕 The case study is sometimes mistaken for the case method used in teaching, but the two are not the same. == Case selection and structure == An average, or typical case, is often not the richest in information. In clarifying lines of history and causation it is more useful to select subjects that offer an interesting, unusual or particularly revealing set of circumstances. A case selection that is based on representativeness will seldom be able to produce these kinds of insights. When selecting a subject for a case study, researchers will therefore use information-oriented sampling, as opposed to random sampling. Outlier cases (that is, those which are extreme, deviant or atypical) reveal more information than the potentially representative case. Alternatively, a case may be selected as a key case, chosen because of the inherent interest of the case or the circumstances surrounding it. Alternatively it may be chosen because of a researchers' in-depth local knowledge; where researchers have this local knowledge they are in a position to “soak and poke” as Fenno puts it, and thereby to offer reasoned lines of explanation based on this rich knowledge of setting and circumstances. Three types of cases may thus be distinguished: # Key cases # Outlier cases # Local knowledge cases Whatever the frame of reference for the choice of the subject of the case study (key, outlier, local knowledge), there is a distinction to be made between the ''subjestorical unity''〔M. Wieviorka (1992) Case studies: history or sociology? In C.C. Ragin and H.S. Becker (Eds) What is a case? Exploring the foundations of social inquiry. New York: Cambridge University Press.〕 through which the theoretical focus of the study is being viewed. The object is that theoretical focus – the analytical frame. Thus, for example, if a researcher were interested in US resistance to communist expansion as a theoretical focus, then the Korean War might be taken to be the ''subject'', the lens, the case study through which the theoretical focus, the ''object'', could be viewed and explicated.〔Gary Thomas, ''How to do your Case Study'' (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2011)〕 Beyond decisions about case selection and the subject and object of the study, decisions need to be made about purpose, approach and process in the case study. Thomas〔 thus proposes a typology for the case study wherein purposes are first identified (evaluative or exploratory), then approaches are delineated (theory-testing, theory-building or illustrative), then processes are decided upon, with a principal choice being between whether the study is to be single or multiple, and choices also about whether the study is to be retrospective, snapshot or diachronic, and whether it is nested, parallel or sequential. It is thus possible to take many routes through this typology, with, for example, an exploratory, theory-building, multiple, nested study, or an evaluative, theory-testing, single, retrospective study. The typology thus offers many permutations for case study structure. A closely related study in medicine is the case report, which identifies a specific case as treated and/or examined by the authors as presented in a novel form. These are, to a differentiable degree, similar to the case study in that many contain reviews of the relevant literature of the topic discussed in the thorough examination of an array of cases published to fit the criterion of the report being presented. These case reports can be thought of as brief case studies with a principal discussion of the new, presented case at hand that presents a novel interest. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Case study」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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