case study for educational

Center for Teaching

Case studies.

Print Version

Case studies are stories that are used as a teaching tool to show the application of a theory or concept to real situations. Dependent on the goal they are meant to fulfill, cases can be fact-driven and deductive where there is a correct answer, or they can be context driven where multiple solutions are possible. Various disciplines have employed case studies, including humanities, social sciences, sciences, engineering, law, business, and medicine. Good cases generally have the following features: they tell a good story, are recent, include dialogue, create empathy with the main characters, are relevant to the reader, serve a teaching function, require a dilemma to be solved, and have generality.

Instructors can create their own cases or can find cases that already exist. The following are some things to keep in mind when creating a case:

• What do you want students to learn from the discussion of the case?
• What do they already know that applies to the case?
• What are the issues that may be raised in discussion?
• How will the case and discussion be introduced?
• What preparation is expected of students? (Do they need to read the case ahead of time? Do research? Write anything?)
• What directions do you need to provide students regarding what they are supposed to do and accomplish?
• Do you need to divide students into groups or will they discuss as the whole class?
• Are you going to use role-playing or facilitators or record keepers? If so, how?
• What are the opening questions?
• How much time is needed for students to discuss the case?
• What concepts are to be applied/extracted during the discussion?
• How will you evaluate students?

To find other cases that already exist, try the following websites:

• The National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science , University of Buffalo. SUNY-Buffalo maintains this set of links to other case studies on the web in disciplines ranging from engineering and ethics to sociology and business
• A Journal of Teaching Cases in Public Administration and Public Policy , University of Washington

For more information:

• World Association for Case Method Research and Application

Book Review :  Teaching and the Case Method , 3rd ed., vols. 1 and 2, by Louis Barnes, C. Roland (Chris) Christensen, and Abby Hansen. Harvard Business School Press, 1994; 333 pp. (vol 1), 412 pp. (vol 2).

Teaching Guides

• Online Course Development Resources
• Principles & Frameworks
• Pedagogies & Strategies
• Reflecting & Assessing
• Challenges & Opportunities
• Populations & Contexts

Quick Links

• Services for Departments and Schools
• Examples of Online Instructional Modules

• Our Mission

Making Learning Relevant With Case Studies

The open-ended problems presented in case studies give students work that feels connected to their lives.

To prepare students for jobs that haven’t been created yet, we need to teach them how to be great problem solvers so that they’ll be ready for anything. One way to do this is by teaching content and skills using real-world case studies, a learning model that’s focused on reflection during the problem-solving process. It’s similar to project-based learning, but PBL is more focused on students creating a product.

Case studies have been used for years by businesses, law and medical schools, physicians on rounds, and artists critiquing work. Like other forms of problem-based learning, case studies can be accessible for every age group, both in one subject and in interdisciplinary work.

You can get started with case studies by tackling relatable questions like these with your students:

• How can we limit food waste in the cafeteria?
• How can we get our school to recycle and compost waste? (Or, if you want to be more complex, how can our school reduce its carbon footprint?)
• How can we improve school attendance?
• How can we reduce the number of people who get sick at school during cold and flu season?

Addressing questions like these leads students to identify topics they need to learn more about. In researching the first question, for example, students may see that they need to research food chains and nutrition. Students often ask, reasonably, why they need to learn something, or when they’ll use their knowledge in the future. Learning is most successful for students when the content and skills they’re studying are relevant, and case studies offer one way to create that sense of relevance.

Teaching With Case Studies

Ultimately, a case study is simply an interesting problem with many correct answers. What does case study work look like in classrooms? Teachers generally start by having students read the case or watch a video that summarizes the case. Students then work in small groups or individually to solve the case study. Teachers set milestones defining what students should accomplish to help them manage their time.

During the case study learning process, student assessment of learning should be focused on reflection. Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick’s Learning and Leading With Habits of Mind gives several examples of what this reflection can look like in a classroom: 

Journaling: At the end of each work period, have students write an entry summarizing what they worked on, what worked well, what didn’t, and why. Sentence starters and clear rubrics or guidelines will help students be successful. At the end of a case study project, as Costa and Kallick write, it’s helpful to have students “select significant learnings, envision how they could apply these learnings to future situations, and commit to an action plan to consciously modify their behaviors.”

Interviews: While working on a case study, students can interview each other about their progress and learning. Teachers can interview students individually or in small groups to assess their learning process and their progress.

Student discussion: Discussions can be unstructured—students can talk about what they worked on that day in a think-pair-share or as a full class—or structured, using Socratic seminars or fishbowl discussions. If your class is tackling a case study in small groups, create a second set of small groups with a representative from each of the case study groups so that the groups can share their learning.

4 Tips for Setting Up a Case Study

1. Identify a problem to investigate: This should be something accessible and relevant to students’ lives. The problem should also be challenging and complex enough to yield multiple solutions with many layers.

2. Give context: Think of this step as a movie preview or book summary. Hook the learners to help them understand just enough about the problem to want to learn more.

3. Have a clear rubric: Giving structure to your definition of quality group work and products will lead to stronger end products. You may be able to have your learners help build these definitions.

4. Provide structures for presenting solutions: The amount of scaffolding you build in depends on your students’ skill level and development. A case study product can be something like several pieces of evidence of students collaborating to solve the case study, and ultimately presenting their solution with a detailed slide deck or an essay—you can scaffold this by providing specified headings for the sections of the essay.

Problem-Based Teaching Resources

There are many high-quality, peer-reviewed resources that are open source and easily accessible online.

• The National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science at the University at Buffalo built an online collection of more than 800 cases that cover topics ranging from biochemistry to economics. There are resources for middle and high school students.
• Models of Excellence , a project maintained by EL Education and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has examples of great problem- and project-based tasks—and corresponding exemplary student work—for grades pre-K to 12.
• The Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning at Purdue University is an open-source journal that publishes examples of problem-based learning in K–12 and post-secondary classrooms.
• The Tech Edvocate has a list of websites and tools related to problem-based learning.

In their book Problems as Possibilities , Linda Torp and Sara Sage write that at the elementary school level, students particularly appreciate how they feel that they are taken seriously when solving case studies. At the middle school level, “researchers stress the importance of relating middle school curriculum to issues of student concern and interest.” And high schoolers, they write, find the case study method “beneficial in preparing them for their future.”

• Subject List
• Take a Tour
• For Authors
• Subscriber Services
• Publications
• African American Studies
• African Studies
• American Literature
• Anthropology
• Architecture Planning and Preservation
• Art History
• Atlantic History
• Biblical Studies
• British and Irish Literature
• Childhood Studies
• Chinese Studies
• Cinema and Media Studies
• Communication
• Criminology
• Environmental Science
• Evolutionary Biology
• International Law
• International Relations
• Islamic Studies
• Jewish Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Latino Studies
• Linguistics
• Literary and Critical Theory
• Medieval Studies
• Military History
• Political Science
• Public Health
• Renaissance and Reformation
• Social Work
• Urban Studies
• Victorian Literature
• Browse All Subjects

How to Subscribe

• Free Trials

In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Case Study in Education Research

Introduction, general overview and foundational texts of the late 20th century.

• Conceptualisations and Definitions of Case Study
• Case Study and Theoretical Grounding
• Choosing Cases
• Methodology, Method, Genre, or Approach
• Case Study: Quality and Generalizability
• Multiple Case Studies
• Exemplary Case Studies and Example Case Studies
• Criticism, Defense, and Debate around Case Study

Related Articles Expand or collapse the "related articles" section about

About related articles close popup.

Lorem Ipsum Sit Dolor Amet

Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Aliquam ligula odio, euismod ut aliquam et, vestibulum nec risus. Nulla viverra, arcu et iaculis consequat, justo diam ornare tellus, semper ultrices tellus nunc eu tellus.

• Data Collection in Educational Research
• Educational Research Approaches: A Comparison
• Mixed Methods Research
• Program Evaluation

Other Subject Areas

Forthcoming articles expand or collapse the "forthcoming articles" section.

• Cyber Safety in Schools
• Girls' Education in the Developing World
• History of Education in Europe
• Find more forthcoming articles...
• Export Citations
• Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Case Study in Education Research by Lorna Hamilton LAST REVIEWED: 27 June 2018 LAST MODIFIED: 27 June 2018 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0201

It is important to distinguish between case study as a teaching methodology and case study as an approach, genre, or method in educational research. The use of case study as teaching method highlights the ways in which the essential qualities of the case—richness of real-world data and lived experiences—can help learners gain insights into a different world and can bring learning to life. The use of case study in this way has been around for about a hundred years or more. Case study use in educational research, meanwhile, emerged particularly strongly in the 1970s and 1980s in the United Kingdom and the United States as a means of harnessing the richness and depth of understanding of individuals, groups, and institutions; their beliefs and perceptions; their interactions; and their challenges and issues. Writers, such as Lawrence Stenhouse, advocated the use of case study as a form that teacher-researchers could use as they focused on the richness and intensity of their own practices. In addition, academic writers and postgraduate students embraced case study as a means of providing structure and depth to educational projects. However, as educational research has developed, so has debate on the quality and usefulness of case study as well as the problems surrounding the lack of generalizability when dealing with single or even multiple cases. The question of how to define and support case study work has formed the basis for innumerable books and discursive articles, starting with Robert Yin’s original book on case study ( Yin 1984 , cited under General Overview and Foundational Texts of the Late 20th Century ) to the myriad authors who attempt to bring something new to the realm of case study in educational research in the 21st century.

This section briefly considers the ways in which case study research has developed over the last forty to fifty years in educational research usage and reflects on whether the field has finally come of age, respected by creators and consumers of research. Case study has its roots in anthropological studies in which a strong ethnographic approach to the study of peoples and culture encouraged researchers to identify and investigate key individuals and groups by trying to understand the lived world of such people from their points of view. Although ethnography has emphasized the role of researcher as immersive and engaged with the lived world of participants via participant observation, evolving approaches to case study in education has been about the richness and depth of understanding that can be gained through involvement in the case by drawing on diverse perspectives and diverse forms of data collection. Embracing case study as a means of entering these lived worlds in educational research projects, was encouraged in the 1970s and 1980s by researchers, such as Lawrence Stenhouse, who provided a helpful impetus for case study work in education ( Stenhouse 1980 ). Stenhouse wrestled with the use of case study as ethnography because ethnographers traditionally had been unfamiliar with the peoples they were investigating, whereas educational researchers often worked in situations that were inherently familiar. Stenhouse also emphasized the need for evidence of rigorous processes and decisions in order to encourage robust practice and accountability to the wider field by allowing others to judge the quality of work through transparency of processes. Yin 1984 , the first book focused wholly on case study in research, gave a brief and basic outline of case study and associated practices. Various authors followed this approach, striving to engage more deeply in the significance of case study in the social sciences. Key among these are Merriam 1988 and Stake 1995 , along with Yin 1984 , who established powerful groundings for case study work. Additionally, evidence of the increasing popularity of case study can be found in a broad range of generic research methods texts, but these often do not have much scope for the extensive discussion of case study found in case study–specific books. Yin’s books and numerous editions provide a developing or evolving notion of case study with more detailed accounts of the possible purposes of case study, followed by Merriam 1988 and Stake 1995 who wrestled with alternative ways of looking at purposes and the positioning of case study within potential disciplinary modes. The authors referenced in this section are often characterized as the foundational authors on this subject and may have published various editions of their work, cited elsewhere in this article, based on their shifting ideas or emphases.

Merriam, S. B. 1988. Case study research in education: A qualitative approach . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

This is Merriam’s initial text on case study and is eminently accessible. The author establishes and reinforces various key features of case study; demonstrates support for positioning the case within a subject domain, e.g., psychology, sociology, etc.; and further shapes the case according to its purpose or intent.

Stake, R. E. 1995. The art of case study research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Stake is a very readable author, accessible and yet engaging with complex topics. The author establishes his key forms of case study: intrinsic, instrumental, and collective. Stake brings the reader through the process of conceptualizing the case, carrying it out, and analyzing the data. The author uses authentic examples to help readers understand and appreciate the nuances of an interpretive approach to case study.

Stenhouse, L. 1980. The study of samples and the study of cases. British Educational Research Journal 6:1–6.

DOI: 10.1080/0141192800060101

A key article in which Stenhouse sets out his stand on case study work. Those interested in the evolution of case study use in educational research should consider this article and the insights given.

Yin, R. K. 1984. Case Study Research: Design and Methods . Beverley Hills, CA: SAGE.

This preliminary text from Yin was very basic. However, it may be of interest in comparison with later books because Yin shows the ways in which case study as an approach or method in research has evolved in relation to detailed discussions of purpose, as well as the practicalities of working through the research process.

back to top

Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login .

Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here .

• About Education »
• Meet the Editorial Board »
• Academic Achievement
• Academic Audit for Universities
• Academic Freedom and Tenure in the United States
• Action Research in Education
• Adjuncts in Higher Education in the United States
• Administrator Preparation
• Adolescence
• Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate Courses
• Advocacy and Activism in Early Childhood
• African American Racial Identity and Learning
• Alaska Native Education
• Alternative Certification Programs for Educators
• Alternative Schools
• American Indian Education
• Animals in Environmental Education
• Art Education
• Artificial Intelligence and Learning
• Assessing School Leader Effectiveness
• Assessment, Behavioral
• Assessment, Educational
• Assessment in Early Childhood Education
• Assistive Technology
• Augmented Reality in Education
• Beginning-Teacher Induction
• Bilingual Education and Bilingualism
• Black Undergraduate Women: Critical Race and Gender Perspe...
• Black Women in Academia
• Blended Learning
• Case Study in Education Research
• Changing Professional and Academic Identities
• Character Education
• Children’s and Young Adult Literature
• Children's Beliefs about Intelligence
• Children's Rights in Early Childhood Education
• Citizenship Education
• Civic and Social Engagement of Higher Education
• Classroom Learning Environments: Assessing and Investigati...
• Classroom Management
• Coherent Instructional Systems at the School and School Sy...
• College Admissions in the United States
• College Athletics in the United States
• Community Relations
• Comparative Education
• Computer-Assisted Language Learning
• Computer-Based Testing
• Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Evaluating Improvement Net...
• Continuous Improvement and "High Leverage" Educational Pro...
• Counseling in Schools
• Critical Approaches to Gender in Higher Education
• Critical Perspectives on Educational Innovation and Improv...
• Critical Race Theory
• Crossborder and Transnational Higher Education
• Cross-National Research on Continuous Improvement
• Cross-Sector Research on Continuous Learning and Improveme...
• Cultural Diversity in Early Childhood Education
• Culturally Responsive Leadership
• Culturally Responsive Pedagogies
• Culturally Responsive Teacher Education in the United Stat...
• Curriculum Design
• Data-driven Decision Making in the United States
• Deaf Education
• Desegregation and Integration
• Design Thinking and the Learning Sciences: Theoretical, Pr...
• Development, Moral
• Dialogic Pedagogy
• Digital Age Teacher, The
• Digital Citizenship
• Digital Divides
• Disabilities
• Distance Learning
• Distributed Leadership
• Doctoral Education and Training
• Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in Denmark
• Early Childhood Education and Development in Mexico
• Early Childhood Education in Aotearoa New Zealand
• Early Childhood Education in Australia
• Early Childhood Education in China
• Early Childhood Education in Europe
• Early Childhood Education in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Early Childhood Education in Sweden
• Early Childhood Education Pedagogy
• Early Childhood Education Policy
• Early Childhood Education, The Arts in
• Early Childhood Mathematics
• Early Childhood Science
• Early Childhood Teacher Education
• Early Childhood Teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand
• Early Years Professionalism and Professionalization Polici...
• Economics of Education
• Education For Children with Autism
• Education for Sustainable Development
• Education Leadership, Empirical Perspectives in
• Education of Native Hawaiian Students
• Education Reform and School Change
• Educational Statistics for Longitudinal Research
• Educator Partnerships with Parents and Families with a Foc...
• Emotional and Affective Issues in Environmental and Sustai...
• Emotional and Behavioral Disorders
• English as an International Language for Academic Publishi...
• Environmental and Science Education: Overlaps and Issues
• Environmental Education
• Environmental Education in Brazil
• Epistemic Beliefs
• Equity and Improvement: Engaging Communities in Educationa...
• Equity, Ethnicity, Diversity, and Excellence in Education
• Ethical Research with Young Children
• Ethics and Education
• Ethics of Teaching
• Ethnic Studies
• Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention
• Family and Community Partnerships in Education
• Family Day Care
• Federal Government Programs and Issues
• Feminization of Labor in Academia
• Finance, Education
• Financial Aid
• Formative Assessment
• Future-Focused Education
• Gender and Achievement
• Gender and Alternative Education
• Gender, Power and Politics in the Academy
• Gender-Based Violence on University Campuses
• Gifted Education
• Global Mindedness and Global Citizenship Education
• Global University Rankings
• Governance, Education
• Grounded Theory
• Growth of Effective Mental Health Services in Schools in t...
• Higher Education and Globalization
• Higher Education and the Developing World
• Higher Education Faculty Characteristics and Trends in the...
• Higher Education Finance
• Higher Education Governance
• Higher Education Graduate Outcomes and Destinations
• Higher Education in Africa
• Higher Education in China
• Higher Education in Latin America
• Higher Education in the United States, Historical Evolutio...
• Higher Education, International Issues in
• Higher Education Management
• Higher Education Policy
• Higher Education Research
• Higher Education Student Assessment
• High-stakes Testing
• History of Early Childhood Education in the United States
• History of Education in the United States
• History of Technology Integration in Education
• Homeschooling
• Inclusion in Early Childhood: Difference, Disability, and ...
• Inclusive Education
• Indigenous Education in a Global Context
• Indigenous Learning Environments
• Indigenous Students in Higher Education in the United Stat...
• Infant and Toddler Pedagogy
• Inservice Teacher Education
• Integrating Art across the Curriculum
• Intelligence
• Intensive Interventions for Children and Adolescents with ...
• International Perspectives on Academic Freedom
• Intersectionality and Education
• Knowledge Development in Early Childhood
• Leadership Development, Coaching and Feedback for
• Leadership in Early Childhood Education
• Leadership Training with an Emphasis on the United States
• Learning Analytics in Higher Education
• Learning Difficulties
• Learning, Lifelong
• Learning, Multimedia
• Learning Strategies
• Legal Matters and Education Law
• LGBT Youth in Schools
• Linguistic Diversity
• Linguistically Inclusive Pedagogy
• Literacy Development and Language Acquisition
• Literature Reviews
• Mathematics Identity
• Mathematics Instruction and Interventions for Students wit...
• Mathematics Teacher Education
• Measurement for Improvement in Education
• Measurement in Education in the United States
• Meta-Analysis and Research Synthesis in Education
• Methodological Approaches for Impact Evaluation in Educati...
• Methodologies for Conducting Education Research
• Mindfulness, Learning, and Education
• Motherscholars
• Multiliteracies in Early Childhood Education
• Multiple Documents Literacy: Theory, Research, and Applica...
• Multivariate Research Methodology
• Museums, Education, and Curriculum
• Music Education
• Narrative Research in Education
• Native American Studies
• Nonformal and Informal Environmental Education
• Note-Taking
• Numeracy Education
• One-to-One Technology in the K-12 Classroom
• Online Education
• Open Education
• Organizing for Continuous Improvement in Education
• Organizing Schools for the Inclusion of Students with Disa...
• Outdoor Play and Learning
• Outdoor Play and Learning in Early Childhood Education
• Pedagogical Leadership
• Pedagogy of Teacher Education, A
• Performance Objectives and Measurement
• Performance-based Research Assessment in Higher Education
• Performance-based Research Funding
• Phenomenology in Educational Research
• Philosophy of Education
• Physical Education
• Podcasts in Education
• Policy Context of United States Educational Innovation and...
• Politics of Education
• Portable Technology Use in Special Education Programs and ...
• Post-humanism and Environmental Education
• Pre-Service Teacher Education
• Problem Solving
• Productivity and Higher Education
• Professional Development
• Professional Learning Communities
• Programs and Services for Students with Emotional or Behav...
• Psychology Learning and Teaching
• Psychometric Issues in the Assessment of English Language ...
• Qualitative Data Analysis Techniques
• Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Research Samp...
• Qualitative Research Design
• Quantitative Research Designs in Educational Research
• Queering the English Language Arts (ELA) Writing Classroom
• Race and Affirmative Action in Higher Education
• Reading Education
• Refugee and New Immigrant Learners
• Relational and Developmental Trauma and Schools
• Relational Pedagogies in Early Childhood Education
• Reliability in Educational Assessments
• Religion in Elementary and Secondary Education in the Unit...
• Researcher Development and Skills Training within the Cont...
• Research-Practice Partnerships in Education within the Uni...
• Response to Intervention
• Restorative Practices
• Risky Play in Early Childhood Education
• Scale and Sustainability of Education Innovation and Impro...
• Scaling Up Research-based Educational Practices
• School Accreditation
• School Choice
• School Culture
• School District Budgeting and Financial Management in the ...
• School Improvement through Inclusive Education
• School Reform
• Schools, Private and Independent
• School-Wide Positive Behavior Support
• Science Education
• Secondary to Postsecondary Transition Issues
• Self-Regulated Learning
• Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices
• Service-Learning
• Severe Disabilities
• Single Salary Schedule
• Single-sex Education
• Single-Subject Research Design
• Social Context of Education
• Social Justice
• Social Network Analysis
• Social Pedagogy
• Social Science and Education Research
• Social Studies Education
• Sociology of Education
• Standards-Based Education
• Statistical Assumptions
• Student Access, Equity, and Diversity in Higher Education
• Student Assignment Policy
• Student Engagement in Tertiary Education
• Student Learning, Development, Engagement, and Motivation ...
• Student Participation
• Student Voice in Teacher Development
• Sustainability Education in Early Childhood Education
• Sustainability in Early Childhood Education
• Sustainability in Higher Education
• Teacher Beliefs and Epistemologies
• Teacher Collaboration in School Improvement
• Teacher Evaluation and Teacher Effectiveness
• Teacher Preparation
• Teacher Training and Development
• Teacher Unions and Associations
• Teacher-Student Relationships
• Teaching Critical Thinking
• Technologies, Teaching, and Learning in Higher Education
• Technology Education in Early Childhood
• Technology, Educational
• Technology-based Assessment
• The Bologna Process
• The Regulation of Standards in Higher Education
• Theories of Educational Leadership
• Three Conceptions of Literacy: Media, Narrative, and Gamin...
• Tracking and Detracking
• Traditions of Quality Improvement in Education
• Transformative Learning
• Transitions in Early Childhood Education
• Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities in the Unite...
• Understanding the Psycho-Social Dimensions of Schools and ...
• University Faculty Roles and Responsibilities in the Unite...
• Using Ethnography in Educational Research
• Value of Higher Education for Students and Other Stakehold...
• Virtual Learning Environments
• Vocational and Technical Education
• Wellness and Well-Being in Education
• Women's and Gender Studies
• Young Children and Spirituality
• Young Children's Learning Dispositions
• Young Children's Working Theories
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Policy
• Legal Notice
• Accessibility

Powered by:

• [185.80.149.115]
• 185.80.149.115

Search form

• About Faculty Development and Support
• Programs and Funding Opportunities

Consultations, Observations, and Services

• Strategic Resources & Digital Publications
• Canvas @ Yale Support
• Learning Environments @ Yale
• Teaching Workshops
• Teaching Consultations and Classroom Observations
• Teaching Programs
• Spring Teaching Forum
• Written and Oral Communication Workshops and Panels
• Writing Resources & Tutorials
• About the Graduate Writing Laboratory
• Writing and Public Speaking Consultations
• Writing Workshops and Panels
• Writing Peer-Review Groups
• Writing Retreats and All Writes
• Online Writing Resources for Graduate Students
• About Teaching Development for Graduate and Professional School Students
• Teaching Programs and Grants
• Teaching Forums
• Resources for Graduate Student Teachers
• About Undergraduate Writing and Tutoring
• Academic Strategies Program
• The Writing Center
• STEM Tutoring & Programs
• Humanities & Social Sciences
• Center for Language Study
• Online Course Catalog
• Antiracist Pedagogy
• NECQL 2019: NorthEast Consortium for Quantitative Literacy XXII Meeting
• STEMinar Series
• Teaching in Context: Troubling Times
• Helmsley Postdoctoral Teaching Scholars
• Pedagogical Partners
• Instructional Materials
• Evaluation & Research
• STEM Education Job Opportunities
• Yale Connect
• Online Education Legal Statements

You are here

Case-based learning.

Case-based learning (CBL) is an established approach used across disciplines where students apply their knowledge to real-world scenarios, promoting higher levels of cognition (see Bloom’s Taxonomy ). In CBL classrooms, students typically work in groups on case studies, stories involving one or more characters and/or scenarios.  The cases present a disciplinary problem or problems for which students devise solutions under the guidance of the instructor. CBL has a strong history of successful implementation in medical, law, and business schools, and is increasingly used within undergraduate education, particularly within pre-professional majors and the sciences (Herreid, 1994). This method involves guided inquiry and is grounded in constructivism whereby students form new meanings by interacting with their knowledge and the environment (Lee, 2012).

There are a number of benefits to using CBL in the classroom. In a review of the literature, Williams (2005) describes how CBL: utilizes collaborative learning, facilitates the integration of learning, develops students’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to learn, encourages learner self-reflection and critical reflection, allows for scientific inquiry, integrates knowledge and practice, and supports the development of a variety of learning skills.

CBL has several defining characteristics, including versatility, storytelling power, and efficient self-guided learning.  In a systematic analysis of 104 articles in health professions education, CBL was found to be utilized in courses with less than 50 to over 1000 students (Thistlethwaite et al., 2012). In these classrooms, group sizes ranged from 1 to 30, with most consisting of 2 to 15 students.  Instructors varied in the proportion of time they implemented CBL in the classroom, ranging from one case spanning two hours of classroom time, to year-long case-based courses. These findings demonstrate that instructors use CBL in a variety of ways in their classrooms.

The stories that comprise the framework of case studies are also a key component to CBL’s effectiveness. Jonassen and Hernandez-Serrano (2002, p.66) describe how storytelling:

Is a method of negotiating and renegotiating meanings that allows us to enter into other’s realms of meaning through messages they utter in their stories,

Helps us find our place in a culture,

Allows us to explicate and to interpret, and

Facilitates the attainment of vicarious experience by helping us to distinguish the positive models to emulate from the negative model.

Neurochemically, listening to stories can activate oxytocin, a hormone that increases one’s sensitivity to social cues, resulting in more empathy, generosity, compassion and trustworthiness (Zak, 2013; Kosfeld et al., 2005). The stories within case studies serve as a means by which learners form new understandings through characters and/or scenarios.

CBL is often described in conjunction or in comparison with problem-based learning (PBL). While the lines are often confusingly blurred within the literature, in the most conservative of definitions, the features distinguishing the two approaches include that PBL involves open rather than guided inquiry, is less structured, and the instructor plays a more passive role. In PBL multiple solutions to the problem may exit, but the problem is often initially not well-defined. PBL also has a stronger emphasis on developing self-directed learning. The choice between implementing CBL versus PBL is highly dependent on the goals and context of the instruction.  For example, in a comparison of PBL and CBL approaches during a curricular shift at two medical schools, students and faculty preferred CBL to PBL (Srinivasan et al., 2007). Students perceived CBL to be a more efficient process and more clinically applicable. However, in another context, PBL might be the favored approach.

In a review of the effectiveness of CBL in health profession education, Thistlethwaite et al. (2012), found several benefits:

Students enjoyed the method and thought it enhanced their learning,

Instructors liked how CBL engaged students in learning,

CBL seemed to facilitate small group learning, but the authors could not distinguish between whether it was the case itself or the small group learning that occurred as facilitated by the case.

Other studies have also reported on the effectiveness of CBL in achieving learning outcomes (Bonney, 2015; Breslin, 2008; Herreid, 2013; Krain, 2016). These findings suggest that CBL is a vehicle of engagement for instruction, and facilitates an environment whereby students can construct knowledge.

Science – Students are given a scenario to which they apply their basic science knowledge and problem-solving skills to help them solve the case. One example within the biological sciences is two brothers who have a family history of a genetic illness. They each have mutations within a particular sequence in their DNA. Students work through the case and draw conclusions about the biological impacts of these mutations using basic science. Sample cases: You are Not the Mother of Your Children ; Organic Chemisty and Your Cellphone: Organic Light-Emitting Diodes ;   A Light on Physics: F-Number and Exposure Time

Medicine – Medical or pre-health students read about a patient presenting with specific symptoms. Students decide which questions are important to ask the patient in their medical history, how long they have experienced such symptoms, etc. The case unfolds and students use clinical reasoning, propose relevant tests, develop a differential diagnoses and a plan of treatment. Sample cases: The Case of the Crying Baby: Surgical vs. Medical Management ; The Plan: Ethics and Physician Assisted Suicide ; The Haemophilus Vaccine: A Victory for Immunologic Engineering

Public Health – A case study describes a pandemic of a deadly infectious disease. Students work through the case to identify Patient Zero, the person who was the first to spread the disease, and how that individual became infected.  Sample cases: The Protective Parent ; The Elusive Tuberculosis Case: The CDC and Andrew Speaker ; Credible Voice: WHO-Beijing and the SARS Crisis

Law – A case study presents a legal dilemma for which students use problem solving to decide the best way to advise and defend a client. Students are presented information that changes during the case.  Sample cases: Mortgage Crisis Call (abstract) ; The Case of the Unpaid Interns (abstract) ; Police-Community Dialogue (abstract)

Business – Students work on a case study that presents the history of a business success or failure. They apply business principles learned in the classroom and assess why the venture was successful or not. Sample cases: SELCO-Determining a path forward ; Project Masiluleke: Texting and Testing to Fight HIV/AIDS in South Africa ; Mayo Clinic: Design Thinking in Healthcare

Humanities - Students consider a case that presents a theater facing financial and management difficulties. They apply business and theater principles learned in the classroom to the case, working together to create solutions for the theater. Sample cases: David Geffen School of Drama

Recommendations

Finding and Writing Cases

Consider utilizing or adapting open access cases - The availability of open resources and databases containing cases that instructors can download makes this approach even more accessible in the classroom. Two examples of open databases are the Case Center on Public Leadership and Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Case Program , which focus on government, leadership and public policy case studies.

• Consider writing original cases - In the event that an instructor is unable to find open access cases relevant to their course learning objectives, they may choose to write their own. See the following resources on case writing: Cooking with Betty Crocker: A Recipe for Case Writing ; The Way of Flesch: The Art of Writing Readable Cases ;   Twixt Fact and Fiction: A Case Writer’s Dilemma ; And All That Jazz: An Essay Extolling the Virtues of Writing Case Teaching Notes .

Implementing Cases

Take baby steps if new to CBL - While entire courses and curricula may involve case-based learning, instructors who desire to implement on a smaller-scale can integrate a single case into their class, and increase the number of cases utilized over time as desired.

Use cases in classes that are small, medium or large - Cases can be scaled to any course size. In large classes with stadium seating, students can work with peers nearby, while in small classes with more flexible seating arrangements, teams can move their chairs closer together. CBL can introduce more noise (and energy) in the classroom to which an instructor often quickly becomes accustomed. Further, students can be asked to work on cases outside of class, and wrap up discussion during the next class meeting.

Encourage collaborative work - Cases present an opportunity for students to work together to solve cases which the historical literature supports as beneficial to student learning (Bruffee, 1993). Allow students to work in groups to answer case questions.

Form diverse teams as feasible - When students work within diverse teams they can be exposed to a variety of perspectives that can help them solve the case. Depending on the context of the course, priorities, and the background information gathered about the students enrolled in the class, instructors may choose to organize student groups to allow for diversity in factors such as current course grades, gender, race/ethnicity, personality, among other items.  

Use stable teams as appropriate - If CBL is a large component of the course, a research-supported practice is to keep teams together long enough to go through the stages of group development: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning (Tuckman, 1965).

Walk around to guide groups - In CBL instructors serve as facilitators of student learning. Walking around allows the instructor to monitor student progress as well as identify and support any groups that may be struggling. Teaching assistants can also play a valuable role in supporting groups.

Interrupt strategically - Only every so often, for conversation in large group discussion of the case, especially when students appear confused on key concepts. An effective practice to help students meet case learning goals is to guide them as a whole group when the class is ready. This may include selecting a few student groups to present answers to discussion questions to the entire class, asking the class a question relevant to the case using polling software, and/or performing a mini-lesson on an area that appears to be confusing among students.  

Assess student learning in multiple ways - Students can be assessed informally by asking groups to report back answers to various case questions. This practice also helps students stay on task, and keeps them accountable. Cases can also be included on exams using related scenarios where students are asked to apply their knowledge.

Barrows HS. (1996). Problem-based learning in medicine and beyond: a brief overview. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 68, 3-12.  

Bonney KM. (2015). Case Study Teaching Method Improves Student Performance and Perceptions of Learning Gains. Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education, 16(1): 21-28.

Breslin M, Buchanan, R. (2008) On the Case Study Method of Research and Teaching in Design.  Design Issues, 24(1), 36-40.

Bruffee KS. (1993). Collaborative learning: Higher education, interdependence, and authority of knowledge. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.

Herreid CF. (2013). Start with a Story: The Case Study Method of Teaching College Science, edited by Clyde Freeman Herreid. Originally published in 2006 by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA); reprinted by the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (NCCSTS) in 2013.

Herreid CH. (1994). Case studies in science: A novel method of science education. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 23(4), 221–229.

Jonassen DH and Hernandez-Serrano J. (2002). Case-based reasoning and instructional design: Using stories to support problem solving. Educational Technology, Research and Development, 50(2), 65-77.  

Kosfeld M, Heinrichs M, Zak PJ, Fischbacher U, Fehr E. (2005). Oxytocin increases trust in humans. Nature, 435, 673-676.

Krain M. (2016) Putting the learning in case learning? The effects of case-based approaches on student knowledge, attitudes, and engagement. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 27(2), 131-153.

Lee V. (2012). What is Inquiry-Guided Learning?  New Directions for Learning, 129:5-14.

Nkhoma M, Sriratanaviriyakul N. (2017). Using case method to enrich students’ learning outcomes. Active Learning in Higher Education, 18(1):37-50.

Srinivasan et al. (2007). Comparing problem-based learning with case-based learning: Effects of a major curricular shift at two institutions. Academic Medicine, 82(1): 74-82.

Thistlethwaite JE et al. (2012). The effectiveness of case-based learning in health professional education. A BEME systematic review: BEME Guide No. 23.  Medical Teacher, 34, e421-e444.

Tuckman B. (1965). Development sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63(6), 384-99.

Williams B. (2005). Case-based learning - a review of the literature: is there scope for this educational paradigm in prehospital education? Emerg Med, 22, 577-581.

Zak, PJ (2013). How Stories Change the Brain. Retrieved from: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_stories_change_brain

YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN

Reserve a Room

The Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning partners with departments and groups on-campus throughout the year to share its space. Please review the reservation form and submit a request.

Instructional Enhancement Fund

The Instructional Enhancement Fund (IEF) awards grants of up to $500 to support the timely integration of new learning activities into an existing undergraduate or graduate course. All Yale instructors of record, including tenured and tenure-track faculty, clinical instructional faculty, lecturers, lectors, and part-time acting instructors (PTAIs), are eligible to apply. Award decisions are typically provided within two weeks to help instructors implement ideas for the current semester.

The Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning routinely supports members of the Yale community with individual instructional consultations and classroom observations.

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base

Methodology

• What Is a Case Study? | Definition, Examples & Methods

What Is a Case Study? | Definition, Examples & Methods

Published on May 8, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on November 20, 2023.

A case study is a detailed study of a specific subject, such as a person, group, place, event, organization, or phenomenon. Case studies are commonly used in social, educational, clinical, and business research.

A case study research design usually involves qualitative methods , but quantitative methods are sometimes also used. Case studies are good for describing , comparing, evaluating and understanding different aspects of a research problem .

Table of contents

When to do a case study, step 1: select a case, step 2: build a theoretical framework, step 3: collect your data, step 4: describe and analyze the case, other interesting articles.

A case study is an appropriate research design when you want to gain concrete, contextual, in-depth knowledge about a specific real-world subject. It allows you to explore the key characteristics, meanings, and implications of the case.

Case studies are often a good choice in a thesis or dissertation . They keep your project focused and manageable when you don’t have the time or resources to do large-scale research.

You might use just one complex case study where you explore a single subject in depth, or conduct multiple case studies to compare and illuminate different aspects of your research problem.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Once you have developed your problem statement and research questions , you should be ready to choose the specific case that you want to focus on. A good case study should have the potential to:

• Provide new or unexpected insights into the subject
• Challenge or complicate existing assumptions and theories
• Propose practical courses of action to resolve a problem
• Open up new directions for future research

TipIf your research is more practical in nature and aims to simultaneously investigate an issue as you solve it, consider conducting action research instead.

Unlike quantitative or experimental research , a strong case study does not require a random or representative sample. In fact, case studies often deliberately focus on unusual, neglected, or outlying cases which may shed new light on the research problem.

Example of an outlying case studyIn the 1960s the town of Roseto, Pennsylvania was discovered to have extremely low rates of heart disease compared to the US average. It became an important case study for understanding previously neglected causes of heart disease.

However, you can also choose a more common or representative case to exemplify a particular category, experience or phenomenon.

Example of a representative case studyIn the 1920s, two sociologists used Muncie, Indiana as a case study of a typical American city that supposedly exemplified the changing culture of the US at the time.

While case studies focus more on concrete details than general theories, they should usually have some connection with theory in the field. This way the case study is not just an isolated description, but is integrated into existing knowledge about the topic. It might aim to:

• Exemplify a theory by showing how it explains the case under investigation
• Expand on a theory by uncovering new concepts and ideas that need to be incorporated
• Challenge a theory by exploring an outlier case that doesn’t fit with established assumptions

To ensure that your analysis of the case has a solid academic grounding, you should conduct a literature review of sources related to the topic and develop a theoretical framework . This means identifying key concepts and theories to guide your analysis and interpretation.

There are many different research methods you can use to collect data on your subject. Case studies tend to focus on qualitative data using methods such as interviews , observations , and analysis of primary and secondary sources (e.g., newspaper articles, photographs, official records). Sometimes a case study will also collect quantitative data.

Example of a mixed methods case studyFor a case study of a wind farm development in a rural area, you could collect quantitative data on employment rates and business revenue, collect qualitative data on local people’s perceptions and experiences, and analyze local and national media coverage of the development.

The aim is to gain as thorough an understanding as possible of the case and its context.

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Discover proofreading & editing

In writing up the case study, you need to bring together all the relevant aspects to give as complete a picture as possible of the subject.

How you report your findings depends on the type of research you are doing. Some case studies are structured like a standard scientific paper or thesis , with separate sections or chapters for the methods , results and discussion .

Others are written in a more narrative style, aiming to explore the case from various angles and analyze its meanings and implications (for example, by using textual analysis or discourse analysis ).

In all cases, though, make sure to give contextual details about the case, connect it back to the literature and theory, and discuss how it fits into wider patterns or debates.

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Normal distribution
• Degrees of freedom
• Null hypothesis
• Discourse analysis
• Control groups
• Mixed methods research
• Non-probability sampling
• Quantitative research
• Ecological validity

Research bias

• Rosenthal effect
• Implicit bias
• Cognitive bias
• Selection bias
• Negativity bias
• Status quo bias

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, November 20). What Is a Case Study? | Definition, Examples & Methods. Scribbr. Retrieved August 3, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/case-study/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, primary vs. secondary sources | difference & examples, what is a theoretical framework | guide to organizing, what is action research | definition & examples, "i thought ai proofreading was useless but..".

I've been using Scribbr for years now and I know it's a service that won't disappoint. It does a good job spotting mistakes”

Using Case Studies to Teach

Why Use Cases?

Many students are more inductive than deductive reasoners, which means that they learn better from examples than from logical development starting with basic principles. The use of case studies can therefore be a very effective classroom technique.

Case studies are have long been used in business schools, law schools, medical schools and the social sciences, but they can be used in any discipline when instructors want students to explore how what they have learned applies to real world situations. Cases come in many formats, from a simple “What would you do in this situation?” question to a detailed description of a situation with accompanying data to analyze. Whether to use a simple scenario-type case or a complex detailed one depends on your course objectives.

Most case assignments require students to answer an open-ended question or develop a solution to an open-ended problem with multiple potential solutions. Requirements can range from a one-paragraph answer to a fully developed group action plan, proposal or decision.

Common Case Elements

Most “full-blown” cases have these common elements:

• A decision-maker who is grappling with some question or problem that needs to be solved.
• A description of the problem’s context (a law, an industry, a family).
• Supporting data, which can range from data tables to links to URLs, quoted statements or testimony, supporting documents, images, video, or audio.

Case assignments can be done individually or in teams so that the students can brainstorm solutions and share the work load.

The following discussion of this topic incorporates material presented by Robb Dixon of the School of Management and Rob Schadt of the School of Public Health at CEIT workshops. Professor Dixon also provided some written comments that the discussion incorporates.

Advantages to the use of case studies in class

A major advantage of teaching with case studies is that the students are actively engaged in figuring out the principles by abstracting from the examples. This develops their skills in:

• Problem solving
• Analytical tools, quantitative and/or qualitative, depending on the case
• Decision making in complex situations
• Coping with ambiguities

Guidelines for using case studies in class

In the most straightforward application, the presentation of the case study establishes a framework for analysis. It is helpful if the statement of the case provides enough information for the students to figure out solutions and then to identify how to apply those solutions in other similar situations. Instructors may choose to use several cases so that students can identify both the similarities and differences among the cases.

Depending on the course objectives, the instructor may encourage students to follow a systematic approach to their analysis.  For example:

• What is the issue?
• What is the goal of the analysis?
• What is the context of the problem?
• What key facts should be considered?
• What alternatives are available to the decision-maker?
• What would you recommend — and why?

An innovative approach to case analysis might be to have students  role-play the part of the people involved in the case. This not only actively engages students, but forces them to really understand the perspectives of the case characters. Videos or even field trips showing the venue in which the case is situated can help students to visualize the situation that they need to analyze.

Accompanying Readings

Case studies can be especially effective if they are paired with a reading assignment that introduces or explains a concept or analytical method that applies to the case. The amount of emphasis placed on the use of the reading during the case discussion depends on the complexity of the concept or method. If it is straightforward, the focus of the discussion can be placed on the use of the analytical results. If the method is more complex, the instructor may need to walk students through its application and the interpretation of the results.

Leading the Case Discussion and Evaluating Performance

Decision cases are more interesting than descriptive ones. In order to start the discussion in class, the instructor can start with an easy, noncontroversial question that all the students should be able to answer readily. However, some of the best case discussions start by forcing the students to take a stand. Some instructors will ask a student to do a formal “open” of the case, outlining his or her entire analysis.  Others may choose to guide discussion with questions that move students from problem identification to solutions.  A skilled instructor steers questions and discussion to keep the class on track and moving at a reasonable pace.

In order to motivate the students to complete the assignment before class as well as to stimulate attentiveness during the class, the instructor should grade the participation—quantity and especially quality—during the discussion of the case. This might be a simple check, check-plus, check-minus or zero. The instructor should involve as many students as possible. In order to engage all the students, the instructor can divide them into groups, give each group several minutes to discuss how to answer a question related to the case, and then ask a randomly selected person in each group to present the group’s answer and reasoning. Random selection can be accomplished through rolling of dice, shuffled index cards, each with one student’s name, a spinning wheel, etc.

Tips on the Penn State U. website: https://sites.psu.edu/pedagogicalpractices/case-studies/

If you are interested in using this technique in a science course, there is a good website on use of case studies in the sciences at the National Science Teaching Association.

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• J Microbiol Biol Educ
• v.16(1); 2015 May

Case Study Teaching Method Improves Student Performance and Perceptions of Learning Gains †

Associated data.

• Appendix 1: Example assessment questions used to assess the effectiveness of case studies at promoting learning
• Appendix 2: Student learning gains were assessed using a modified version of the SALG course evaluation tool

Following years of widespread use in business and medical education, the case study teaching method is becoming an increasingly common teaching strategy in science education. However, the current body of research provides limited evidence that the use of published case studies effectively promotes the fulfillment of specific learning objectives integral to many biology courses. This study tested the hypothesis that case studies are more effective than classroom discussions and textbook reading at promoting learning of key biological concepts, development of written and oral communication skills, and comprehension of the relevance of biological concepts to everyday life. This study also tested the hypothesis that case studies produced by the instructor of a course are more effective at promoting learning than those produced by unaffiliated instructors. Additionally, performance on quantitative learning assessments and student perceptions of learning gains were analyzed to determine whether reported perceptions of learning gains accurately reflect academic performance. The results reported here suggest that case studies, regardless of the source, are significantly more effective than other methods of content delivery at increasing performance on examination questions related to chemical bonds, osmosis and diffusion, mitosis and meiosis, and DNA structure and replication. This finding was positively correlated to increased student perceptions of learning gains associated with oral and written communication skills and the ability to recognize connections between biological concepts and other aspects of life. Based on these findings, case studies should be considered as a preferred method for teaching about a variety of concepts in science courses.

INTRODUCTION

The case study teaching method is a highly adaptable style of teaching that involves problem-based learning and promotes the development of analytical skills ( 8 ). By presenting content in the format of a narrative accompanied by questions and activities that promote group discussion and solving of complex problems, case studies facilitate development of the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive learning; moving beyond recall of knowledge to analysis, evaluation, and application ( 1 , 9 ). Similarly, case studies facilitate interdisciplinary learning and can be used to highlight connections between specific academic topics and real-world societal issues and applications ( 3 , 9 ). This has been reported to increase student motivation to participate in class activities, which promotes learning and increases performance on assessments ( 7 , 16 , 19 , 23 ). For these reasons, case-based teaching has been widely used in business and medical education for many years ( 4 , 11 , 12 , 14 ). Although case studies were considered a novel method of science education just 20 years ago, the case study teaching method has gained popularity in recent years among an array of scientific disciplines such as biology, chemistry, nursing, and psychology ( 5 – 7 , 9 , 11 , 13 , 15 – 17 , 21 , 22 , 24 ).

Although there is now a substantive and growing body of literature describing how to develop and use case studies in science teaching, current research on the effectiveness of case study teaching at meeting specific learning objectives is of limited scope and depth. Studies have shown that working in groups during completion of case studies significantly improves student perceptions of learning and may increase performance on assessment questions, and that the use of clickers can increase student engagement in case study activities, particularly among non-science majors, women, and freshmen ( 7 , 21 , 22 ). Case study teaching has been shown to improve exam performance in an anatomy and physiology course, increasing the mean score across all exams given in a two-semester sequence from 66% to 73% ( 5 ). Use of case studies was also shown to improve students’ ability to synthesize complex analytical questions about the real-world issues associated with a scientific topic ( 6 ). In a high school chemistry course, it was demonstrated that the case study teaching method produces significant increases in self-reported control of learning, task value, and self-efficacy for learning and performance ( 24 ). This effect on student motivation is important because enhanced motivation for learning activities has been shown to promote student engagement and academic performance ( 19 , 24 ). Additionally, faculty from a number of institutions have reported that using case studies promotes critical thinking, learning, and participation among students, especially in terms of the ability to view an issue from multiple perspectives and to grasp the practical application of core course concepts ( 23 ).

Despite what is known about the effectiveness of case studies in science education, questions remain about the functionality of the case study teaching method at promoting specific learning objectives that are important to many undergraduate biology courses. A recent survey of teachers who use case studies found that the topics most often covered in general biology courses included genetics and heredity, cell structure, cells and energy, chemistry of life, and cell cycle and cancer, suggesting that these topics should be of particular interest in studies that examine the effectiveness of the case study teaching method ( 8 ). However, the existing body of literature lacks direct evidence that the case study method is an effective tool for teaching about this collection of important topics in biology courses. Further, the extent to which case study teaching promotes development of science communication skills and the ability to understand the connections between biological concepts and everyday life has not been examined, yet these are core learning objectives shared by a variety of science courses. Although many instructors have produced case studies for use in their own classrooms, the production of novel case studies is time-consuming and requires skills that not all instructors have perfected. It is therefore important to determine whether case studies published by instructors who are unaffiliated with a particular course can be used effectively and obviate the need for each instructor to develop new case studies for their own courses. The results reported herein indicate that teaching with case studies results in significantly higher performance on examination questions about chemical bonds, osmosis and diffusion, mitosis and meiosis, and DNA structure and replication than that achieved by class discussions and textbook reading for topics of similar complexity. Case studies also increased overall student perceptions of learning gains and perceptions of learning gains specifically related to written and oral communication skills and the ability to grasp connections between scientific topics and their real-world applications. The effectiveness of the case study teaching method at increasing academic performance was not correlated to whether the case study used was authored by the instructor of the course or by an unaffiliated instructor. These findings support increased use of published case studies in the teaching of a variety of biological concepts and learning objectives.

Student population

This study was conducted at Kingsborough Community College, which is part of the City University of New York system, located in Brooklyn, New York. Kingsborough Community College has a diverse population of approximately 19,000 undergraduate students. The student population included in this study was enrolled in the first semester of a two-semester sequence of general (introductory) biology for biology majors during the spring, winter, or summer semester of 2014. A total of 63 students completed the course during this time period; 56 students consented to the inclusion of their data in the study. Of the students included in the study, 23 (41%) were male and 33 (59%) were female; 40 (71%) were registered as college freshmen and 16 (29%) were registered as college sophomores. To normalize participant groups, the same student population pooled from three classes taught by the same instructor was used to assess both experimental and control teaching methods.

Course material

The four biological concepts assessed during this study (chemical bonds, osmosis and diffusion, mitosis and meiosis, and DNA structure and replication) were selected as topics for studying the effectiveness of case study teaching because they were the key concepts addressed by this particular course that were most likely to be taught in a number of other courses, including biology courses for both majors and nonmajors at outside institutions. At the start of this study, relevant existing case studies were freely available from the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (NCCSTS) to address mitosis and meiosis and DNA structure and replication, but published case studies that appropriately addressed chemical bonds and osmosis and diffusion were not available. Therefore, original case studies that addressed the latter two topics were produced as part of this study, and case studies produced by unaffiliated instructors and published by the NCCSTS were used to address the former two topics. By the conclusion of this study, all four case studies had been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication by the NCCSTS ( http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/ ). Four of the remaining core topics covered in this course (macromolecules, photosynthesis, genetic inheritance, and translation) were selected as control lessons to provide control assessment data.

To minimize extraneous variation, control topics and assessments were carefully matched in complexity, format, and number with case studies, and an equal amount of class time was allocated for each case study and the corresponding control lesson. Instruction related to control lessons was delivered using minimal slide-based lectures, with emphasis on textbook reading assignments accompanied by worksheets completed by students in and out of the classroom, and small and large group discussion of key points. Completion of activities and discussion related to all case studies and control topics that were analyzed was conducted in the classroom, with the exception of the take-home portion of the osmosis and diffusion case study.

Data collection and analysis

This study was performed in accordance with a protocol approved by the Kingsborough Community College Human Research Protection Program and the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the City University of New York (CUNY IRB reference 539938-1; KCC IRB application #: KCC 13-12-126-0138). Assessment scores were collected from regularly scheduled course examinations. For each case study, control questions were included on the same examination that were similar in number, format, point value, and difficulty level, but related to a different topic covered in the course that was of similar complexity. Complexity and difficulty of both case study and control questions were evaluated using experiential data from previous iterations of the course; the Bloom’s taxonomy designation and amount of material covered by each question, as well as the average score on similar questions achieved by students in previous iterations of the course was considered in determining appropriate controls. All assessment questions were scored using a standardized, pre-determined rubric. Student perceptions of learning gains were assessed using a modified version of the Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG) course evaluation tool ( http://www.salgsite.org ), distributed in hardcopy and completed anonymously during the last week of the course. Students were presented with a consent form to opt-in to having their data included in the data analysis. After the course had concluded and final course grades had been posted, data from consenting students were pooled in a database and identifying information was removed prior to analysis. Statistical analysis of data was conducted using the Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance and calculation of the R 2 coefficient of determination.

Teaching with case studies improves performance on learning assessments, independent of case study origin

To evaluate the effectiveness of the case study teaching method at promoting learning, student performance on examination questions related to material covered by case studies was compared with performance on questions that covered material addressed through classroom discussions and textbook reading. The latter questions served as control items; assessment items for each case study were compared with control items that were of similar format, difficulty, and point value ( Appendix 1 ). Each of the four case studies resulted in an increase in examination performance compared with control questions that was statistically significant, with an average difference of 18% ( Fig. 1 ). The mean score on case study-related questions was 73% for the chemical bonds case study, 79% for osmosis and diffusion, 76% for mitosis and meiosis, and 70% for DNA structure and replication ( Fig. 1 ). The mean score for non-case study-related control questions was 60%, 54%, 60%, and 52%, respectively ( Fig. 1 ). In terms of examination performance, no significant difference between case studies produced by the instructor of the course (chemical bonds and osmosis and diffusion) and those produced by unaffiliated instructors (mitosis and meiosis and DNA structure and replication) was indicated by the Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance. However, the 25% difference between the mean score on questions related to the osmosis and diffusion case study and the mean score on the paired control questions was notably higher than the 13–18% differences observed for the other case studies ( Fig. 1 ).

Case study teaching method increases student performance on examination questions. Mean score on a set of examination questions related to lessons covered by case studies (black bars) and paired control questions of similar format and difficulty about an unrelated topic (white bars). Chemical bonds, n = 54; Osmosis and diffusion, n = 54; Mitosis and meiosis, n = 51; DNA structure and replication, n = 50. Error bars represent the standard error of the mean (SEM). Asterisk indicates p < 0.05.

Case study teaching increases student perception of learning gains related to core course objectives

Student learning gains were assessed using a modified version of the SALG course evaluation tool ( Appendix 2 ). To determine whether completing case studies was more effective at increasing student perceptions of learning gains than completing textbook readings or participating in class discussions, perceptions of student learning gains for each were compared. In response to the question “Overall, how much did each of the following aspects of the class help your learning?” 82% of students responded that case studies helped a “good” or “great” amount, compared with 70% for participating in class discussions and 58% for completing textbook reading; only 4% of students responded that case studies helped a “small amount” or “provided no help,” compared with 2% for class discussions and 22% for textbook reading ( Fig. 2A ). The differences in reported learning gains derived from the use of case studies compared with class discussion and textbook readings were statistically significant, while the difference in learning gains associated with class discussion compared with textbook reading was not statistically significant by a narrow margin ( p = 0.051).

The case study teaching method increases student perceptions of learning gains. Student perceptions of learning gains are indicated by plotting responses to the question “How much did each of the following activities: (A) Help your learning overall? (B) Improve your ability to communicate your knowledge of scientific concepts in writing? (C) Improve your ability to communicate your knowledge of scientific concepts orally? (D) Help you understand the connections between scientific concepts and other aspects of your everyday life?” Reponses are represented as follows: Helped a great amount (black bars); Helped a good amount (dark gray bars); Helped a moderate amount (medium gray bars); Helped a small amount (light gray bars); Provided no help (white bars). Asterisk indicates p < 0.05.

To elucidate the effectiveness of case studies at promoting learning gains related to specific course learning objectives compared with class discussions and textbook reading, students were asked how much each of these methods of content delivery specifically helped improve skills that were integral to fulfilling three main course objectives. When students were asked how much each of the methods helped “improve your ability to communicate knowledge of scientific concepts in writing,” 81% of students responded that case studies help a “good” or “great” amount, compared with 63% for class discussions and 59% for textbook reading; only 6% of students responded that case studies helped a “small amount” or “provided no help,” compared with 8% for class discussions and 21% for textbook reading ( Fig. 2B ). When the same question was posed about the ability to communicate orally, 81% of students responded that case studies help a “good” or “great” amount, compared with 68% for class discussions and 50% for textbook reading, while the respective response rates for helped a “small amount” or “provided no help,” were 4%, 6%, and 25% ( Fig. 2C ). The differences in learning gains associated with both written and oral communication were statistically significant when completion of case studies was compared with either participation in class discussion or completion of textbook readings. Compared with textbook reading, class discussions led to a statistically significant increase in oral but not written communication skills.

Students were then asked how much each of the methods helped them “understand the connections between scientific concepts and other aspects of your everyday life.” A total of 79% of respondents declared that case studies help a “good” or “great” amount, compared with 70% for class discussions and 57% for textbook reading ( Fig. 2D ). Only 4% stated that case studies and class discussions helped a “small amount” or “provided no help,” compared with 21% for textbook reading ( Fig. 2D ). Similar to overall learning gains, the use of case studies significantly increased the ability to understand the relevance of science to everyday life compared with class discussion and textbook readings, while the difference in learning gains associated with participation in class discussion compared with textbook reading was not statistically significant ( p = 0.054).

Student perceptions of learning gains resulting from case study teaching are positively correlated to increased performance on examinations, but independent of case study author

To test the hypothesis that case studies produced specifically for this course by the instructor were more effective at promoting learning gains than topically relevant case studies published by authors not associated with this course, perceptions of learning gains were compared for each of the case studies. For both of the case studies produced by the instructor of the course, 87% of students indicated that the case study provided a “good” or “great” amount of help to their learning, and 2% indicated that the case studies provided “little” or “no” help ( Table 1 ). In comparison, an average of 85% of students indicated that the case studies produced by an unaffiliated instructor provided a “good” or “great” amount of help to their learning, and 4% indicated that the case studies provided “little” or “no” help ( Table 1 ). The instructor-produced case studies yielded both the highest and lowest percentage of students reporting the highest level of learning gains (a “great” amount), while case studies produced by unaffiliated instructors yielded intermediate values. Therefore, it can be concluded that the effectiveness of case studies at promoting learning gains is not significantly affected by whether or not the course instructor authored the case study.

Case studies positively affect student perceptions of learning gains about various biological topics.

Finally, to determine whether performance on examination questions accurately predicts student perceptions of learning gains, mean scores on examination questions related to case studies were compared with reported perceptions of learning gains for those case studies ( Fig. 3 ). The coefficient of determination (R 2 value) was 0.81, indicating a strong, but not definitive, positive correlation between perceptions of learning gains and performance on examinations, suggesting that student perception of learning gains is a valid tool for assessing the effectiveness of case studies ( Fig. 3 ). This correlation was independent of case study author.

Perception of learning gains but not author of case study is positively correlated to score on related examination questions. Percentage of students reporting that each specific case study provided “a great amount of help” to their learning was plotted against the point difference between mean score on examination questions related to that case study and mean score on paired control questions. Positive point differences indicate how much higher the mean scores on case study-related questions were than the mean scores on paired control questions. Black squares represent case studies produced by the instructor of the course; white squares represent case studies produced by unaffiliated instructors. R 2 value indicates the coefficient of determination.

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that teaching with case studies produced by the instructor of a course is more effective at promoting learning gains than using case studies produced by unaffiliated instructors. This study also tested the hypothesis that the case study teaching method is more effective than class discussions and textbook reading at promoting learning gains associated with four of the most commonly taught topics in undergraduate general biology courses: chemical bonds, osmosis and diffusion, mitosis and meiosis, and DNA structure and replication. In addition to assessing content-based learning gains, development of written and oral communication skills and the ability to connect scientific topics with real-world applications was also assessed, because these skills were overarching learning objectives of this course, and classroom activities related to both case studies and control lessons were designed to provide opportunities for students to develop these skills. Finally, data were analyzed to determine whether performance on examination questions is positively correlated to student perceptions of learning gains resulting from case study teaching.

Compared with equivalent control questions about topics of similar complexity taught using class discussions and textbook readings, all four case studies produced statistically significant increases in the mean score on examination questions ( Fig. 1 ). This indicates that case studies are more effective than more commonly used, traditional methods of content delivery at promoting learning of a variety of core concepts covered in general biology courses. The average increase in score on each test item was equivalent to nearly two letter grades, which is substantial enough to elevate the average student performance on test items from the unsatisfactory/failing range to the satisfactory/passing range. The finding that there was no statistical difference between case studies in terms of performance on examination questions suggests that case studies are equally effective at promoting learning of disparate topics in biology. The observations that students did not perform significantly less well on the first case study presented (chemical bonds) compared with the other case studies and that performance on examination questions did not progressively increase with each successive case study suggests that the effectiveness of case studies is not directly related to the amount of experience students have using case studies. Furthermore, anecdotal evidence from previous semesters of this course suggests that, of the four topics addressed by cases in this study, DNA structure and function and osmosis and diffusion are the first and second most difficult for students to grasp. The lack of a statistical difference between case studies therefore suggests that the effectiveness of a case study at promoting learning gains is not directly proportional to the difficulty of the concept covered. However, the finding that use of the osmosis and diffusion case study resulted in the greatest increase in examination performance compared with control questions and also produced the highest student perceptions of learning gains is noteworthy and could be attributed to the fact that it was the only case study evaluated that included a hands-on experiment. Because the inclusion of a hands-on kinetic activity may synergistically enhance student engagement and learning and result in an even greater increase in learning gains than case studies that lack this type of activity, it is recommended that case studies that incorporate this type of activity be preferentially utilized.

Student perceptions of learning gains are strongly motivating factors for engagement in the classroom and academic performance, so it is important to assess the effect of any teaching method in this context ( 19 , 24 ). A modified version of the SALG course evaluation tool was used to assess student perceptions of learning gains because it has been previously validated as an efficacious tool ( Appendix 2 ) ( 20 ). Using the SALG tool, case study teaching was demonstrated to significantly increase student perceptions of overall learning gains compared with class discussions and textbook reading ( Fig. 2A ). Case studies were shown to be particularly useful for promoting perceived development of written and oral communication skills and for demonstrating connections between scientific topics and real-world issues and applications ( Figs. 2B–2D ). Further, student perceptions of “great” learning gains positively correlated with increased performance on examination questions, indicating that assessment of learning gains using the SALG tool is both valid and useful in this course setting ( Fig. 3 ). These findings also suggest that case study teaching could be used to increase student motivation and engagement in classroom activities and thus promote learning and performance on assessments. The finding that textbook reading yielded the lowest student perceptions of learning gains was not unexpected, since reading facilitates passive learning while the class discussions and case studies were both designed to promote active learning.

Importantly, there was no statistical difference in student performance on examinations attributed to the two case studies produced by the instructor of the course compared with the two case studies produced by unaffiliated instructors. The average difference between the two instructor-produced case studies and the two case studies published by unaffiliated instructors was only 3% in terms of both the average score on examination questions (76% compared with 73%) and the average increase in score compared with paired control items (14% compared with 17%) ( Fig. 1 ). Even when considering the inherent qualitative differences of course grades, these differences are negligible. Similarly, the effectiveness of case studies at promoting learning gains was not significantly affected by the origin of the case study, as evidenced by similar percentages of students reporting “good” and “great” learning gains regardless of whether the case study was produced by the course instructor or an unaffiliated instructor ( Table 1 ).

The observation that case studies published by unaffiliated instructors are just as effective as those produced by the instructor of a course suggests that instructors can reasonably rely on the use of pre-published case studies relevant to their class rather than investing the considerable time and effort required to produce a novel case study. Case studies covering a wide range of topics in the sciences are available from a number of sources, and many of them are free access. The National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (NCCSTS) database ( http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/ ) contains over 500 case studies that are freely available to instructors, and are accompanied by teaching notes that provide logistical advice and additional resources for implementing the case study, as well as a set of assessment questions with a password-protected answer key. Case study repositories are also maintained by BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium ( http://www.bioquest.org/icbl/cases.php ) and the Science Case Network ( http://sciencecasenet.org ); both are available for use by instructors from outside institutions.

It should be noted that all case studies used in this study were rigorously peer-reviewed and accepted for publication by the NCCSTS prior to the completion of this study ( 2 , 10 , 18 , 25 ); the conclusions of this study may not apply to case studies that were not developed in accordance with similar standards. Because case study teaching involves skills such as creative writing and management of dynamic group discussion in a way that is not commonly integrated into many other teaching methods, it is recommended that novice case study teachers seek training or guidance before writing their first case study or implementing the method. The lack of a difference observed in the use of case studies from different sources should be interpreted with some degree of caution since only two sources were represented in this study, and each by only two cases. Furthermore, in an educational setting, quantitative differences in test scores might produce meaningful qualitative differences in course grades even in the absence of a p value that is statistically significant. For example, there is a meaningful qualitative difference between test scores that result in an average grade of C− and test scores that result in an average grade of C+, even if there is no statistically significant difference between the two sets of scores.

In the future, it could be informative to confirm these findings using a larger cohort, by repeating the study at different institutions with different instructors, by evaluating different case studies, and by directly comparing the effectiveness of the case studying teaching method with additional forms of instruction, such as traditional chalkboard and slide-based lecturing, and laboratory-based activities. It may also be informative to examine whether demographic factors such as student age and gender modulate the effectiveness of the case study teaching method, and whether case studies work equally well for non-science majors taking a science course compared with those majoring in the subject. Since the topical material used in this study is often included in other classes in both high school and undergraduate education, such as cell biology, genetics, and chemistry, the conclusions of this study are directly applicable to a broad range of courses. Presently, it is recommended that the use of case studies in teaching undergraduate general biology and other science courses be expanded, especially for the teaching of capacious issues with real-world applications and in classes where development of written and oral communication skills are key objectives. The use of case studies that involve hands-on activities should be emphasized to maximize the benefit of this teaching method. Importantly, instructors can be confident in the use of pre-published case studies to promote learning, as there is no indication that the effectiveness of the case study teaching method is reliant on the production of novel, customized case studies for each course.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS

Acknowledgments.

This article benefitted from a President’s Faculty Innovation Grant, Kingsborough Community College. The author declares that there are no conflicts of interest.

† Supplemental materials available at http://jmbe.asm.org

Eberly Center

Teaching excellence & educational innovation, case studies, what are case studies.

Case studies are stories. They present realistic, complex, and contextually rich situations and often involve a dilemma, conflict, or problem that one or more of the characters in the case must negotiate.

A good case study, according to Professor Paul Lawrence is:

“the vehicle by which a chunk of reality is brought into the classroom to be worked over by the class and the instructor. A good case keeps the class discussion grounded upon some of the stubborn facts that must be faced in real life situations.”

(quoted in Christensen, 1981)

Although they have been used most extensively in the teaching of medicine, law and business, case studies can be an effective teaching tool in any number of disciplines. As an instructional strategy, case studies have a number of virtues. They “bridge the gap between theory and practice and between the academy and the workplace” (Barkley, Cross, and Major 2005, p.182). They also give students practice identifying the parameters of a problem, recognizing and articulating positions, evaluating courses of action, and arguing different points of view.

Case studies vary in length and detail, and can be used in a number of ways, depending on the case itself and on the instructor’s goals.

• They can be short (a few paragraphs) or long (e.g. 20+ pages).
• They can be used in lecture-based or discussion-based classes.
• They can be real, with all the detail drawn from actual people and circumstances, or simply realistic.
• They can provide all the relevant data students need to discuss and resolve the central issue, or only some of it, requiring students to identify, and possibly fill in (via outside research), the missing information.
• They can require students to examine multiple aspects of a problem, or just a circumscribed piece.
• They can require students to propose a solution for the case or simply to identify the parameters of the problem.

Finding or creating cases

It is possible to write your own case studies, although it is not a simple task. The material for a case study can be drawn from your own professional experiences (e.g., negotiating a labor dispute at a local corporation or navigating the rocky shoals of a political campaign), from current events (e.g., a high-profile medical ethics case or a diplomatic conundrum), from historical sources (e.g., a legal debate or military predicament), etc. It is also possible to find published cases from books and on-line case study collections. Whatever the source, an effective case study is one that, according to Davis (1993):

• tells a “real” and engaging story
• raises a thought-provoking issue
• has elements of conflict
• promotes empathy with the central characters
• lacks an obvious or clear-cut right answer
• encourages students to think and take a position
• portrays actors in moments of decision
• provides plenty of data about character, location, context, actions
• is relatively concise

Using case studies

How you use case studies will depend on the goals, as well as on the format, of your course. If it is a large lecture course, for example, you might use a case study to illustrate and enrich the lecture material. (An instructor lecturing on principles of marketing, for example, might use the case of a particular company or product to explore marketing issues and dilemmas in a real-life context.) Also in a large class you might consider breaking the class into small groups or pairs to discuss a relevant case. If your class is a smaller, discussion-format course, you will be able to use more detailed and complex cases, to explore the perspectives introduced in the case in greater depth, and perhaps integrate other instructional strategies, such as role playing or debate. Regardless of the format in which you employ case studies, it is important that you, as the instructor, know all the issues involved in the case, prepare questions and prompts in advance, and anticipate where students might run into problems. Finally, consider who your students are and how you might productively draw on their backgrounds, experiences, personalities, etc., to enhance the discussion. While there are many variations in how case studies can be used, these six steps provide a general framework for how to lead a case-based discussion:

• Give students ample time to read and think about the case. If the case is long, assign it as homework with a set of questions for students to consider (e.g., What is the nature of the problem the central character is facing? What are some possible courses of action? What are the potential obstacles?)
• Introduce the case briefly and provide some guidelines for how to approach it. Clarify how you want students to think about the case (e.g., “Approach this case as if you were the presiding judge” or “You are a consultant hired by this company. What would you recommend?”) Break down the steps you want students to take in analyzing the case (e.g., “First, identify theconstraints each character in the case was operating under and the opportunities s/he had. Second, evaluate the decisions each character made and their implications. Finally, explain what you would have done differently and why.”). If you would like students to disregard or focus on certain information, specify that as well (e.g., “I want you to ignore the political affiliation of the characters described and simply distinguish their positions on stem-cell research as they are articulated here.”)
• Create groups and monitor them to make sure everyone is involved. Breaking the full class into smaller groups gives individual students more opportunities for participation and interaction. However, small groups can drift off track if you do not provide structure. Thus, it is a good idea to make the task of the group very concrete and clear (e.g., “You are to identify three potential courses of action and outline the pros and cons of each from a public relations standpoint”). You may also want to designate roles within each group: for example, one individual might be charged with keeping the others on task and watching the time; a second individual’s role might be to question the assumptions or interpretations of the group and probe for deeper analysis; a third individual’s role might be to record the group’s thoughts and report their decision to the class.  Alternatively, group members could be assigned broad perspectives (e.g., liberal, conservative, libertarian) to represent, or asked to speak for the various “stake-holders” in the case study.
• Have groups present their solutions/reasoning: If groups know they are responsible for producing something (a decision, rationale, analysis) to present to the class, they will approach the discussion with greater focus and seriousness. Write their conclusions on the board so that you can return to them in the discussion that follows.
•  Ask questions for clarification and to move discussion to another level. One of the challenges for a case-based discussion leader is to guide the discussion and probe for deeper analysis without over-directing. As the discussion unfolds, ask questions that call for students to examine their own assumptions, substantiate their claims, provide illustrations, etc.
• Synthesize issues raised. Be sure to bring the various strands of the discussion back together at the end, so that students see what they have learned and take those lessons with them. The job of synthesizing need not necessarily fall to the instructor, however; one or more students can be given this task.

Some variations on this general method include having students do outside research (individually or in groups) to bring to bear on the case in question, and comparing the actual outcome of a real-life dilemma to the solutions generated in class. 

Sources referenced:

Barkley, E. F, Cross, K. P. & Major, C. H. (2005) Collaborative Learning Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty. San-Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Christensen, C. R. (1981) Teaching By the Case Method. Boston: Harvard Business School.

Davis, B. G. (1993) Tools for Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

CASE STUDY IN EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT

• November 2023
• Conference: CLASS NOTE PRESENTATION

• Lagos State University

Discover the world's research

• 25+ million members
• 160+ million publication pages
• 2.3+ billion citations
• Recruit researchers
• Join for free
• Login Email Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login Password Forgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google Welcome back! Please log in. Email · Hint Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login Password Forgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google No account? Sign up

Breadcrumbs Section. Click here to navigate to respective pages.

Case Studies in Educational Psychology

DOI link for Case Studies in Educational Psychology

Get Citation

Case Studies in Educational Psychology is comprised of 55 diverse and realistic case studies that will shape and compliment any Educational Psychology curriculum. The essays are grouped into 10 well-organized units that address issues ranging from Classroom Management to Moral Development, Children from Broken Homes, and Homelessness. Each study concludes with thought-provoking discussions questions that both stimulate discourse around the important issues in Educational Psychology and bring to light the practical implications/applications of each study. Case Studies in Educational Psychology is a challenging yet highly accessible volume - an ideal text for students and teachers of Education Psychology.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part unit 1 | 18  pages, classroom management, chapter | 3  pages, case study 1, chapter | 2  pages, case study 2, case study 3, case study 4, case study 5, case study 6, case study 7, case study 8, part unit 2 | 30  pages, child development, case study 9, chapter | 4  pages, case study 10, case study 11, case study 12, case study 13, case study 14, case study 15, case study 16, case study 17, case study 18, case study 19, part unit 3 | 12  pages, moral development, case study 20, case study 21, case study 22, case study 23, part unit 4 | 10  pages, children with special problems, case study 24, case study 25, case study 26, case study 27, part | 10  pages, children from broken homes, case study 28, case study 29, case study 30, part unit 6 | 8  pages, peer groups, case study 31, case study 32, case study 33, part | 22  pages, troubled teenagers, case study 34, case study 35, case study 36, case study 37, case study 38, case study 39, case study 40, case study 41, case study 42, part | 14  pages, troubled young adults, case study 43, case study 44, case study 45, case study 46, case study 47, part unit 9 | 14  pages, case study 48, case study 49, case study 50, case study 51, case study 52, homeless students, case study 53, case study 54, case study 55, case study 56, part | 16  pages, selected theorists and their theories, albert bandura (1925-present), jerome seymour bruner (1915-present), erik homburger erikson (1902–1994), lawrence kohlberg (1927–1987), chapter | 1  pages, abraham harold maslow (1908–1970), jean piaget (1896–1980), carl rogers (1902–1987), lev semionovich vygotsky (1896–1934), additional resources, constructivism, the four cornerstones of emotional intelligence, tasks to encourage students to use knowledge meaningfully.

• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Cookie Policy
• Taylor & Francis Online
• Taylor & Francis Group
• Students/Researchers
• Librarians/Institutions

Connect with us

Registered in England & Wales No. 3099067 5 Howick Place | London | SW1P 1WG © 2024 Informa UK Limited

This site uses cookies, including third-party cookies, to improve your experience and deliver personalized content.

By continuing to use this website, you agree to our use of all cookies. For more information visit IMA's Cookie Policy .

Change username?

Create a new account, forgot password, sign in to myima, ima educational case journal.

The IMA Educational Case Journal (IECJ ® ) is a quarterly online journal that publishes teaching cases and notes.

IECJ publishes cases covering a wide range of topics reflecting the diverse skill set required of management accountants.

Its published cases take learning beyond mere “number-crunching” exercises to require interpretation of data in a decision-making context – making them ideal learning tools for graduate and undergraduate students.

Editorial Staff

The IMA Educational Case Journal (IECJ ® ) senior editor is Margaret Shackell. The editors are Laurie Burney, Thomas Calderon, and Christine Denison.

Download Their Bios

Meet the Editors – IECJ Office Hours 

Do you have a case idea that you want to discuss and get feedback on? Or perhaps an early case draft? Or general questions about IECJ and the requirements and review process?

Members of the IECJ Editorial Board are happy to assist you during the journal’s “office hours” to help authors improve their papers and make the case writing process a productive and rewarding experience.  These open sessions are available to anyone who would like feedback on a case idea, suggestions on writing a case and teaching notes, or clarification on how to address review comments. If you are considering submitting a paper to the IECJ and would like our guidance, please  click here to access our office hours calendar which offers appointments in multiple time zones.  If the time slots are not convenient, please feel free to reach out for individual appointments with one of our associate or senior editors at [email protected]

Current issue

Past issues, iecj searchable database (excel download), additional ethics questions database (excel download), infusing ethics in managerial/cost accounting classrooms (teaching resource).

› Call for Data Sets : We are looking for “raw” data for use in developing teaching cases. This data can be structured or unstructured, newer or older data, and, if desired, cleaned and disguised so there are no privacy or confidentiality issues. Recipients of IMA Educational Case Journal receive the right to free use of the cases for educational purposes. Supplemental teaching notes are available without charge to IMA Academic members only in myIMA Network in the Teaching Notes Library (you will be prompted to login).

If you are a member of IMA and unable to access IECJ Teaching Notes or have a general question, please email [email protected] .

Submit a Case

IECJ is listed in Cabell’s Directory of Publishing Opportunities for Accounting and welcomes submissions from around the world. Case studies jointly authored by academics and practitioners are encouraged. Real-world cases are strongly preferred, but fictional cases with some basis in practice will be considered.

Case Writing Competitions

How to Submit a Case

More Information

Subscribers may use the cases for educational purposes. Active IMA members automatically have a subscription to IECJ Cases. IMA Academic members and Adjunct Professors have access to IECJ Cases and Teaching Notes.

Submit a Request for Access to Teaching Notes

Questions: Contact the Editor

Insights for You

Copyright Footer Message

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet

• Asia Pacific
• Global Americas
• Middle East/Africa

Verify originality of an essay

Get ideas for your paper

Find top study documents

The List of Case Study Topics On Various Academic Subjects

Updated 18 Jun 2024

Although the majority of academic definitions of case study talk about some process or research work related to the development of a particular person, group of people, or events over a period of time, types of case studies also involve specific analysis to identify problems and find the outcomes. Therefore, the majority of case study topics already include some challenge or an assumption that requires additional research.

The case study usually includes a short description of a problem or an idea that must be explored with the data that should be helpful to let you explore and find the best solutions. For example, turning to a professional case study writing service , you will see that the case studies for nursing students will always differ from those that are used by engineering students. Keeping all these facts and related challenges in mind, we came up with a list of case study topics divided by category.

Case Study Ideas

Coming up with good and reliable case study ideas is essential for college students regardless of their course, existing skills, and academic objectives. Since case study writing explores a plethora of different research methodologies, choosing your topic correctly will help you to avoid such scenarios when your ideas become scattered all over your paper. Have a look at our list of case study ideas based on the subject and use them as a starting point for your future case study assignments. Need help with homework? Hire a professional essay writer .

Case Study Ideas For Psychology

The field of Psychology is quite challenging, which is why it is vital to choose your topic accordingly regardless if you already know the basics or want to overcome writer's block. Here are some interesting ideas to consider based on what is currently popular in various American universities:

• Military operations and the PTSD recovery process.
• The most common misconceptions about children with Autism.
• The workplace leadership and the complex of Emperor.
• The perception of danger in different cultures.
• The origins of bipolar disorder through the prism of domestic violence.
• Covid-19 and related anxiety cases among college students.
• The dangers of advertisements on children's TV networks.
• The negative influence of Instagram and distorted body image.
• Mental recovery of child abuse victims.
• Asthenic syndrome among teenage children.

Case Study Topics In Education

As you are dealing with Education, you should start by exploring the latest changes as the technology is constantly advancing. Compare old and new study methods used in schools or American universities to get the basic idea of competitive case study topics. 

Get your paper in 3 hours!

• Customized writing: 100% original, personalized content.
• Expert editing: polished, standout work.

✔️ Zero AI. Guaranteed Turnitin success.

Here are some of them to explore:

• The challenges of remote education in rural locations in the USA.
• The teaching methods of Montessori schools.
• How to motivate children with learning disabilities?
• Pros and Cons of AI-based systems in education.
• The degree of freedom in Scandinavian schools.
• The role of self-motivation in European middle schools.
• Is Summer Camp education worth it?
• The consequences of improper examination methods.;
• The educative methodologies commonly used by male teachers.
• The changes that have taken place in education during the Covid-19 period.

Information Technology

The students majoring in Data Science or Information Technology sciences also have to face case study writing, which is usually based on various data analysis methods or the impact that technology has in certain fields of life. Still, you can always explore a little bit further and choose different topics for case studies like the ones below:

• Does technology advancement has an end?
• The limitations of the Python programming language.
• The differences between modern programming methods and the "old-school" approaches.
• The analysis of ethical hackers.
• Should one learn to become a hacker to prevent the majority of cyberattacks?
• Is user simplicity always good: WordPress case study?
• The challenges of software development in modern times.
• The safety of data analysis for medical purposes.
• The use of drones in police operations.
• Semantic methods in debugging.

Environmental Science

It is only natural to examine various case studies as you are learning all the complex environmental science aspects. Since the majority of tasks in this field will include either reflective writing or cause-and-effect essays, the use of case study writing cannot be underestimated. We're the  best law essay writing service  that you can trust: we get A grades from our customers.

Here are some ideas to use as the starting points:

• The mobile vessel pump systems that reduce ocean pollution.
• Is saving endangered species possible in our times?
• The cons and pros of ecological tourism.
• The use of politics in the Global Warming campaigns.
• The Earthquake prevention systems in the United States.
• The clarity of Carbon Dioxide Emission reports.
• The reasons why the Kyoto Protocol has double standards.
• The correct method of planting trees in an urban environment.
• How can college students help promote environmental protection.
• The use of Green Technologies during pandemic times.

Marketing Case Study Ideas

As a rule, marketing specialists always have enough to deal with, yet choosing a successful case study topic is not always easy! Do your best to narrow your ideas down to meet the main argument of your thesis statement and the educational objectives. You can browse through a wide range of subjects, including:

• The differences between female and male target marketing methods.
• The unique strategies and popularity of Apple Inc.
• Brand development methods: the most common mistakes.
• German Automotive Industry in the American market.
• Online (digital) versus physical marketing.
• The factors that create customer loyalty in the field of beverages.
• The negativity commonly associated with McDonald's.
• The controversy between Samsung and Apple.
• Is marketing to children morally acceptable?
• The future of marketing methods in the post-Covid-19 world.

Management Case Study Topics

Management is always complex because it involves a plethora of different subjects that must be combined and analyzed. The role of case studies here is vital because it is the best way to learn both old and new methods of management. Consider this list of case study topics on Management:

• Corporate planning and strategic management by Nike Corporation.
• The activity-based costs systems in the Asian markets.
• Is child entrepreneurship taking away the aspect of childhood?
• Should financial management be taught at schools?
• Human Resources Management bias and ethnicity aspects.
• The challenges of global management in modern times.
• The management and social media.
• Does immediate innovation has a place in marketing?
• Sustainable development and globalization.
• Civil rights and the responsibilities of corporate management specialists.

Applied Physics

As you may think that Applied Physics is all about theory or lab experiments, you are quite far from the truth because it also involves case study writing to determine the engineering mistakes or provide college professors with a piece of evidence that you understand the subject correctly.

• Condensed Matter and Mechanical Engineering studies.
• The most common misconceptions about Nanoscience.
• The Green Energy systems in the domestic environment.
• Why the study of Microfluidics is often considered dangerous?
• Quantum Information Science and Data Transfer methods.
• The benefits of Astrophysics lessons for the school children.
• The application of synchrotron radiation and relevant dangers.
• The engineering mindset specifics in Applied Physics.
• Radiation therapy and related mental aspects.
• The role of female scientists in Applied Physics.

SMM Case Study Topics

It is hard to imagine our lives without social media these days. It is only natural that SMM or Social Media Marketing case study topics are becoming even more popular.

Here are some of them you must definitely check:

• The use of children in SMM strategies.
• The challenges of influencers on social media.
• Why the majority of SMM trends are dangerous?
• The reasons why TikTok became popular.
• The importance of impromptu dancing on social media.
• Is SMM Marketing the next best thing for modern sales?
• Online marketing dangers.
• The differences between globalization and mass trend following.
• Social media dangers for children.
• The age gap differences in social media groups.

MBA Case Study Topic Ideas

MBA studies still remain one of the most popular subjects for those who want to start their personal business or promote something innovative. Once you have your MBA degree, you can get employed at some of the world's best companies. Still, as you only study, it is crucial to do all these writing tasks, including reflective journals and case study papers. Have no fear as we have some MBA case study ideas for you:

• Operations management styles at Intel Inc.
• Why the majority of human resource management methods used are outdated today.
• The specifics of marketing research in Japan.
• Customer relationship management and religion.
• Strategic Thinking VS Leadership training.
• MBA marketing specifics.
• The attitude and professional success: Bill Gates personality.
• Steve Jobs' marketing style.
• Financial responsibility of CEOs in the United States.
• The IT marketing through the prism of staff training in marketing.

Human Rights Case Studies

Even though we all have heard about human rights and related challenges these days, it is often uneasy to choose the right case study topic. If you are unsure what to choose, consider these examples of case study topics below:

• The challenges of the Palestinian community.
• Misconceptions about the Black Lives Matter Movement.
• Should children be allowed to vote and participate in politics.
• The gender injustice in the scientific community of American Universities.
• The abuse of female personnel workforce.
• The Anti-Discrimination Act controversies.
• The human rights controversies in the United States versus cases in Canada.
• How can minor children stand for their basic human rights?
• The moral aspect of freedom of speech.
• The human rights activists and their moral principles: South Africa.

Nursing Case Study Subjects

• The privacy of the nurse and patient communications.
• The importance of ER nursing stress reduction methods.
• Should nurses be taught self-defense tactics?
• The presence of ethnic bias in the nursing community.
• The emotional bonds established by the nurses in a team.
• How does team solidarity affect nursing responsibilities?
• The healthcare system in Norway: Bergen hospitals case study analysis.
• Should nurses be granted additional payments for the emotional turbulence that they endure?
• Patients with Alzheimer’s and the modern nursing methods.
• How can nurses help children to communicate more efficiently?

Business Case Study Topics

Regardless of what business field you may encounter for your college studies in the United States, the chances are high that you will need some inspiration for your next case study assignment. Consider taking a look at these topic ideas:

• The quality production differences between Gibson and Fender.
• The link between production quality and strategic thinking implemented by the CEOs.
• The image of the modern business individual today.
• Pricing optimization at Apple Inc.
• The reasons why start-ups became so popular in 2022.
• Market expansion in the Asian markets.
• Industry Landscape in Australia for investment purposes.
• Profitability and moral limitations in business in China.
• Personnel management issues at Amazon business outlets.
• The problems of consumerism in the United States.

Of course, these are only the starting points or the basic ideas that you can use as you think about how to choose a good case study topic for your next project! When in doubt, always consult your academic advisor or hire a professional case study writer to pick the best subject and methodology!

How To Choose Good Case Study Topics?

Starting with your case study topic hunting, follow these simple rules:

• Choose something that inspires you.
• Narrow things down to reflect your main idea the best way possible.
• Explore similar research ideas on the topic.
• Identify the problem(s) and opinions related to your chosen subject.
• Choose relevant methodology that will make it possible to research this or that case study topic.
• Find alternate wording for your case study assignment.
• Brainstorm available case study topics for college students.

Remember that if you are not sure about something, always ask your college advisor and check your grading rubric twice to ensure that you are on the right track!

Analysis Comes First

It must be reminded again that every assignment that you approach must include a preliminary analysis of the topic because you must be aware of various research aspects related to your topic. Take your time to consider different wording patterns and always narrow things down if possible to let your case study writing reflect your thesis and the main ideas. Always provide good evidence and analyze all the available information that you have in the case study instructions. It will help you to provide enough evidence of your research based upon a specific case study. Therefore, brainstorm our case study topics and let your education struggles become easier with our help! And remember that you can always ask us to write my case study!

Was this helpful?

Thanks for your feedback.

Written by David Kidwell

David is one of those experienced content creators from the United Kingdom who has a high interest in social issues, culture, and entrepreneurship. He always says that reading, blogging, and staying aware of what happens in the world is what makes a person responsible. He likes to learn and share what he knows by making things inspiring and creative enough even for those students who dislike reading.

Related Blog Posts

Psychology case study topics: 50+ ideas.

When you are asked to handle topics related to case study psychology, it means that you should know the subject well and explore it the best way po...

Learn how to write an annotated bibliography to achieve the best grades!

Writing an annotated bibliography is one of academic work's most challenging yet essential parts. This helpful EduBirdie guide will tell you all ab...

How to write a survey paper: structure and tips for effective writing

All students dream of an easier way to learn a subject. Writing a survey paper example can effectively synthesize and consolidate information, help...

Join our 150K of happy users

• Get original papers written according to your instructions
• Save time for what matters most

Chemistry Education Research and Practice

A case study on graduate teaching assistants’ teacher noticing when enacting a case-comparison activity in organic chemistry.

* Corresponding authors

a Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA E-mail: [email protected]

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) hold a unique positionality as instructors and research mentors to undergraduate students, research mentees to faculty members, and employees to an institution. With limited pedagogical training and teaching resources, the enactment of planned teaching activities and learning resources may be influenced by how GTAs conceptualize their teacher identity, role, and experiences. In this study, we explored how chemistry GTAs enacted a scaffolded, cooperative-learning case-comparison activity in a second-semester organic chemistry laboratory course. Our study was guided by the conceptual framework of teacher noticing. Teacher noticing – an instructor observing “important” instructional moments and connecting their observations to theory and practice – is a part of developing instructional responses based on students’ reasoning. Pairing this conceptual framework with a case study methodology, we recruited two GTAs, and conducted a pre-observation interview, two observations, and a post-observation interview. We explored GTAs’ teacher noticing – what they observed and interpreted as well as how they shaped and responded. We exposed the tension and the resolution between learning objectives ( i.e. , objectives set by the instructional team for students) and teaching objectives ( i.e. , objectives set by the GTAs for themselves and their students). GTAs’ framing seemed to influence their shaping, and their shaping seemed to balance the instructional team's learning objective and GTAs’ teaching objectives. Because chemistry GTAs serve as instructors in many science undergraduate courses, understanding the unique GTA framing may support both graduate and undergraduate learning experiences. Furthermore, our study has implications for researchers who design organic chemistry learning resources to consider different ways GTAs may support students’ learning. This study additionally has implications for faculty instructors to develop transformative, consistent professional development opportunities focused on transparency, collaboration, and community in teacher learning.

Article information

Download citation, permissions.

I. Zaimi, D. B. Haas, M. J. Silverstein and G. V. Shultz, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. , 2024, Advance Article , DOI: 10.1039/D4RP00093E

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page .

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page .

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content .

Social activity

Search articles by author.

This article has not yet been cited.

Advertisements

• Work & Careers
• Life & Arts
• Currently reading: Business school teaching case study: can biodiversity bonds save natural habitats?
• Business school teaching case study: can the fashion industry be more sustainable?
• Business school teaching case study: Unilever chief signals rethink on ESG
• Business school teaching case study: can green hydrogen’s potential be realised?
• Business school teaching case study: how electric vehicles pose tricky trade dilemmas
• Business school teaching case study: is private equity responsible for child labour violations?

Business school teaching case study: can biodiversity bonds save natural habitats?

• Business school teaching case study: can biodiversity bonds save natural habitats? on x (opens in a new window)
• Business school teaching case study: can biodiversity bonds save natural habitats? on facebook (opens in a new window)
• Business school teaching case study: can biodiversity bonds save natural habitats? on linkedin (opens in a new window)
• Business school teaching case study: can biodiversity bonds save natural habitats? on whatsapp (opens in a new window)

Andrew Karolyi and John Tobin-de la Puente

Simply sign up to the Sustainability myFT Digest -- delivered directly to your inbox.

In June, the Colombian subsidiary of Spanish banking group BBVA announced that it was issuing what it described as the financial sector’s “first biodiversity bond”, in order to finance habitat conservation and restoration projects in the South American country. 

The $50mn initiative — backed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector-focused arm of the World Bank, as structurer and investor — marks a turnaround for a nation recovering from half a century of violence and guerrilla activity. It also places Colombia among a select group of pioneers, including the Seychelles and Belize, that are using the financial markets to support the conservation of nature.

While the green bonds market has seen explosive growth in the past decade, the capital it has raised has overwhelmingly been invested in climate mitigation, alternative energy, and green transportation projects. Minimal amounts go to biodiversity conservation and habitat restoration projects. 

In financing nature, explicitly and directly, this Colombian bond breaks new ground, with metrics linked to objectives to benefit the environment. Invest ors will be repaid through a mix of funding sources including a carbon tax, the government budget and donors .

Test yourself

This is the sixth in a series of monthly business school-style teaching case studies devoted to responsible-business dilemmas faced by organisations. Read the piece and FT articles suggested at the end (and linked to within the piece) before considering the questions raised. 

About the authors: Andrew Karolyi is professor and dean, John Tobin-de la Puente is professor of practice and co-director of the Initiative on Responsible Finance, both at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

The series forms part of a wide-ranging collection of FT ‘instant teaching case studies ’ that explore business challenges.

The question for those concerned about the destruction of the world’s natural habitats is whether this pioneering structured bond will be effective, and whether it could help to inspire a broader range of similar instruments aimed at countering loss of biodiversity around the world. 

Meanwhile, the question for investors is whether the vehicle is sufficiently attractive and robust to attract a new and growing class of funders that may share an interest in environmental issues but also seek competitive returns.

Located at the northern end of the Andes, Colombia straddles the Equator, the Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean, and the Amazon basin. It has the second-highest number of species on the planet after Brazil, and the highest species diversity when measured per square kilometre, according to the World Wildlife Fund . Colombia is home to more than 1,900 species of birds — on a par with Brazil and Peru.

Colombia will be on the frontline of biodiversity losses

But global warming threatens to cause dramatic harm to this biodiversity . Colombia will be on the frontline of these losses because it will be disproportionately affected by climate change compared to countries with fewer species that are more widespread.

Now, though, it could also be in the vanguard of new financial models to reverse the trend.

In 2016, a historic peace agreement between the government and leftist guerrilla group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) marked the end of five decades of armed conflict. Despite continuing violence, the peace process has greatly improved the lives of citizens. However, it has also increased pressure on natural ecosystems. The political violence had meant large areas were shielded from illegal deforestation and degradation of the habitat.

Five years after the peace deal, Colombia became the first Latin American country to issue a green bond in its domestic market : a 10-year $200mn offering aiming to finance a variety of projects intended to benefit the environment — including water management, sustainable transport, biodiversity protection, and renewable energy. High investor demand meant the final amount had been increased by half again.

Finance minister José Manuel Restrepo described the structured bond as an “important step” in finding new ways to finance investment in environmental projects: it would help develop a domestic green bond market and attract a wider range of investors. His ministry identified another $500mn in eligible projects that could be financed through green bonds, including a $50mn Colombian “blue bond” — financing focused on marine habitats and ocean-based projects that generate environmental co-benefits. This was successfully placed in 2023 with the help of BBVA and the IFC as structurer.

Now, the announcement of BBVA Colombia’s biodiversity bond marks another step forward. It focuses on reforestation, regeneration of natural forests on degraded land, mangrove conservation, and wildlife habitat protection.

In the case of green bonds, only a minuscule share of the money raised is spent on nature conservation, in part because few such projects generate cash flows from which to repay investors. Another reason is that it is harder to measure how effectively deployed resources dedicated to conservation — such as for monitoring species population growth — are, or to track activities that help to reach certain conservation target goals over time, such as for restoring degraded ecosystems.  

Using private, financial return-seeking capital to finance the sustainable management and conservation of natural resources is viewed by many experts as the most realistic solution to the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change — given the magnitude of investment needed. 

Yet there is growing political pushback against environmental and social initiatives, most notably in the US. 

Regulators and consumer groups have also launched legal actions to challenge green objectives. Large corporations, including Unilever, Bank of America and Shell, have in the past year dropped or missed goals to cut carbon emissions. And there has been disillusion with the ability of sustainability-linked bonds to meet their objectives. 

By association, that raises fresh questions about continued progress on biodiversity.

In biodiversity finance, doing deals is inherently more difficult

In tackling the climate crisis, the trajectory seems clear: the set of solutions needed is more or less agreed, and a good part of it makes economic sense. But, in biodiversity finance, doing deals is inherently more difficult.

It is more complex to structure transactions that generate proceeds to protect wildlife, restore ecosystems and fund other activities that may not generate cash flows, all while ensuring investors are repaid. Early successes — such as Belize’s blue bond are encouraging — but the potential for real scale is still unclear.

Questions for discussion

How companies are starting to back away from green targets (ft.com)

Green bond issuance surges as investors hunt for yield (ft.com)

Sustainability-linked bonds falter amid credibility concerns (ft.com)

Consider these questions:

1. How critical is the role of the IFC as structurer of the BBVA Colombia biodiversity bond deal in validating its legitimacy and providing investors with assurance? How important is it that IFC is also a co-investor in the biodiversity bond issuance?  

2. What are the pros and cons of the fact that the $50mn BBVA Colombia biodiversity bond deal has been launched following Colombia’s successful placement three years earlier of its sovereign green bond, and following its newly announced “green taxonomy”?  

3. What does the Colombian experience say about the likelihood of rapid change in how countries manage their biodiversity and climate impacts? Does Colombia demonstrate that such change is possible, or is its experience unique and unlikely to represent a model of rapid action for other countries?

4. Can biodiversity bonds meaningfully help to address biodiversity loss? And is this transaction the start of a trend? If not, why would BBVA Colombia have executed this transaction? Is it a gesture of goodwill and a recognition of its own corporate responsibility, or a means to greenwash some of its other less appealing investments?

5. Considering the economic and social context following the peace agreement between Colombia and the Farc forces, how might the shift from conflict to peace affect the country’s ability to balance economic development with environmental conservation?   

Promoted Content

Explore the series.

Follow the topics in this article

• Sustainability Add to myFT
• Impact investing Add to myFT
• Climate change Add to myFT
• Green bonds Add to myFT
• Business school case Add to myFT

Affordances and Constraints to Implementing Project-Based STEM: A Case Study of Systemic School Change

• Open access
• Published: 02 August 2024

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Michael Giamellaro 1 ,
• Benjamin Ewing   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1557-7526 2 &
• Deborah Siegel 3  

97 Accesses

Explore all metrics

School change is difficult and is both leveraged and hindered by interactive influences within complex systems of social practice. Whole-school STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) is a growing trend with unique aspects of change required of educators. A qualitative case study was used to analyze educator perspectives of the affordances and constraints to implementing a project-based, STEM-focused curriculum across all grades and classes of a rural school district in the United States. Educator journals and interviews informed the case over the first 1.5 years of the initiative. Identified affordances and constraints to implementation were organized into six factors and one element. External , teacher, and curriculum factors were disproportionately described as affordances, while administration and district factors were disproportionately described as constraints to the initiative. Student elements and fixed factors were identified as balanced between affordances and constraints. STEM-specific implications of these findings are discussed.

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

The Complex Process of School Change

School change is actualized through the unique local intersection of practices, histories, knowledge, experiences, identities, and social relations (Reinholz et al., 2019 ; Sannino & Nocon, 2008 ). Although innovations are usually introduced at the school level, they are implemented by individual educators with unique perspectives (Hall & Hord, 2015 ). Adopting or resisting an innovation is a dynamic interaction between the individual and the larger group and can be described as a co-constructive process (Datnow et al., 1998 ). How an educator makes meaning of school change occurs through the lens of their particular and existing knowledge, practices, norms, attitudes, identities, social relations, and needs (Datnow et al., 1998 ). Due to these individual lenses, each educator may perceive differences in goals and processes of an innovation and the affordances and constraints that govern the outcomes. Although teachers and students in schools experience change as individuals, STEM as a reform tool must also be understood at the system level, where change can be leveraged (Reinholz et al., 2021 ).

Due to the multiplicity of perspectives and agendas, schools are sites of struggle where internal and external factors influence school change processes positively, negatively, and unpredictably (Carlone et al., 2010 ). Chiu et al. ( 2015 ) found histories, knowledge, experiences, identities, and social relations were not individually associated with successful supports for whole-school STEM, but that successful STEM innovations were associated with multiples of these factors. School climate is one of the strongest predictors of teacher self-efficacy (Aldridge & Fraser, 2016 ), a crucial factor in adopting an innovation. Aldridge and Fraser ( 2016 ) specifically identified approachable administrators and affiliation with other teachers as centrally important to a positive school climate for teachers.

Implementing the Ambiguity of STEM and PBL

STEM is increasingly accepted as an effective approach to developing higher order thinking skills (Agussuryani et al., 2022 ), creativity (Wan et al., 2023 ), and other 21st Century skills. It is also becoming an organizing principle for curriculum, school, and district change initiatives. While not universally defined, STEM is often associated with interdisciplinary and PBL curriculum, authentic contextualization, and a focus on future workforce needs (Holmlund et al., 2018 ; Martín‐Páez et al., 2019 ; Thibaut et al., 2018 ). The banner of “STEM” is also easily disassembled and coopted to justify existing or preferred practice (Siegel & Giamellaro, 2020 ) without necessarily integrating disciplines or using focused curricular approaches, such as PBL (Larkin & Lowrie, 2023 ). STEM is thus associated with multiple, pedagogically difficult approaches that can require major shifts for individual teachers and school systems. For our purposes here, we remain agnostic regarding a specific definition of STEM, highlighting instead the participants’ multiple definitions of the construct, bound by the common label. Indeed, the murkiness of a STEM definition is central to our findings. Please see Siegel and Giamellaro ( 2022 ) for analysis of how the district in this study co-constructed STEM for themselves.

Teachers who incorporate new STEM lessons often struggle with the competing time and policy mandates of teaching the existing content while incorporating the STEM activities (Hutner et al., 2022 ). While specific teacher supports such as coaching (Giamellaro & Siegel, 2023 ), and professional development efforts that are extended (O’Dwyer et al., 2023 ) or use a teachers-as-students approach (Brown & Bogiages, 2019 ), have been shown to improve STEM implementation, these efforts exist in the context of multi-level systems that can threaten those efforts. STEM is currently implemented in K-12 schools across various levels, ranging from single activities to whole-school adoption. Even at the whole-school level, there is wide variation in the actual focus on STEM and, therefore, students’ experiences with STEM (Vaval et al., 2019 ). To take on the change process of becoming a STEM School requires an awareness of what STEM should look like in a reformed school accompanied by multi-level and multi-factorial supports if the initiative is to be successful (Chiu et al., 2015 ; Gardner & Tillotson, 2019 ).

Project-Based Learning is an equally fraught label as it is applied to a wide variety of curricular and pedagogical approaches that is too broad to define clearly. Within the school district described in this case study, PBL indicates curricula designed by the educators themselves, implemented over an extended period, interdisciplinary, and solving a real-world problem, often with experts from germane fields. As with STEM, the participants each held unique visions of PBL as the district co-created their curricular vision, and participants often conflated STEM and PBL (Siegel & Giamellaro, 2022 ). Our stance in this study is to acknowledge these variations as a critical and realistic aspect of any school change process. We tracked a K-12 school district during the first year and a half of its conversion from a traditional to a STEM-focused district. We asked What do teachers and administrators identify as affordances and constraints to implementing district-wide STEM during the first years of a STEM conversion initiative?

Given the ambiguous nature of both STEM and PBL, and the divergent ways that practitioners have implemented them, it is clear that no single model of practice can be implemented with high fidelity and then experimentally tested against a control. Factors such as Teachers’ affective responses to STEM (Brown & Bogiages, 2019 ; Burton et al., 2022 ) and collaborative teacher supports (Kelley et al., 2020 ) have been shown to affect STEM implementation, but complex reforms are always dependent on many inputs, converging and clashing in lived systems (Reinholz et al., 2019 ). There is a need to understand how educators take up these complex reforms and then experience perceived affordances that allow the reform to move forward and constraints that teachers perceive to slow the change process. In one recent study that examined affordances and constraints of STEM implementation at the highest levels of the system, national policy, Mäkelä et al. ( 2023 ) found teacher supports, curricular flexibility, and long-term vision to be affordances while limited resources and collaboration challenges acted as constraints. The present study examined affordances and constraints at the school district level, which are likely to be experienced by other educators struggling to implement complex reforms, including STEM and PBL, but likely other multi-faceted curriculum reforms as well. In so doing, this study provides guidance to school systems intending to implement similar large-scale reforms or to researchers intending to design more controlled systems that utilize affordances and minimize constraints.

We examined how teachers perceived affordances and constraints to district-wide STEM during the early implementation phase (first 1.5 years) of a school district’s change process. Using a case study approach (Yin, 2009 ), we analyzed participant perspectives to identify (1) categories of affordances that allowed for successes in implementation, and (2) categories of constraints that limited implementation efforts. Pattern analysis (Miles et al., 2020 ) of these categories was used to infer mechanisms that afforded or constrained the STEM initiative overall.

Administrators from Crawford (pseudonym), a rural school district in the Northwest United States, decided that STEM PBL was to be incorporated into every grade level, across all disciplines. We have described elsewhere how this district came to define STEM, how that intertwined with PBL, and the implications of those definitions on the implementation of the innovation (Siegel & Giamellaro, 2022 ). Crawford has a population of 1,500 residents, a median household income of $48,000, 12% of persons in poverty, and 79% of residents completing high school or higher (United States Census Bureau, 2018 ). A university partner (Authors) provided support, including grant funding to hire a STEM coach and to provide teacher professional development (PD). The specific role and outcomes of the STEM coach are described in previous work (Giamellaro & Siegel, 2018 ). The coach’s primary role was to support teachers’ individual and collective needs as they invested in changes to their practice to implement district-wide STEM. Individualized supports included helping the teachers to find grade-level and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)-aligned curriculum, modeling inquiry-based instruction with students, coaching teachers on instruction, connecting teachers to external scientists and other experts, and connecting teachers within the district. Network and qualitative analyses showed connections to external experts were powerful aspects of the coach’s role (Giamellaro & Siegel, 2023 ).

Collective supports for teachers included PD sessions on STEM, approaches to PBL, inquiry teaching, formative assessment, curriculum development, contextualized learning, the engineering design process, and NGSS. Eight full-day sessions were required for all faculty. The university led additional, optional on-site graduate courses. About 30% of the school faculty enrolled in these two graduate courses. About 60% of faculty also participated in two week-long summer institutes designed for teachers to learn about creating STEM and PBL curricula and work collectively with peers to design such curricula for the upcoming school year. The PD opportunities were extensive, regular, and varied in delivery mode. More complete descriptions are beyond the focus of this paper and can be found in Authors (Giamellaro & Siegel, 2018 ; Giamellaro & Siegel, 2023 ; Siegel & Giamellaro, 2022 ). At the district level, administrators and faculty worked to redesign the district bell schedule to accommodate STEM PBL, implemented STEM-focused professional learning communities, created venues for showcasing student STEM accomplishments, expressed an acceptance that standardized test scores might dip before they rise, and otherwise prioritized STEM PBL across the district.

The authors agreed to study the implementation through design-based research, in which collected data is iteratively used to inform and improve the initiative’s implementation (Severance et al., 2016 ). The researchers collected data on student and teacher outcomes, educator perceptions of the innovation and their preparedness, professional networks, and other supporting data. The researchers and leadership team met regularly to examine these data and decide how to support the unfolding STEM PBL initiative. The third author focused entirely on data collection and analysis to manage inherent bias and did not design or implement any initiative aspects.

Participants & Data Sources

Most of the educators associated with the district (Table  1 ) were participants in this study, including teachers ( n  = 35) and administrators ( n  = 3). Only two educators in the district opted not to participate in the study, though all educators participated in the STEM PBL initiative and some related professional development. Nine teachers, one administrator, and the STEM coach agreed to keep a written journal to chronicle their experience over the first 1.5 years. Participant journalists were representative of the district faculty and varying degrees of participation in the optional STEM PBL professional development. Journalists were prompted to record any combination of (1) what they taught, (2) student reactions, (3) reflections on their changing practice, and (4) thoughts on the unfolding STEM initiative. Journal writers were asked to write at least weekly throughout the year and were given a modest stipend.

We also conducted open conversational interviews (Brenner, 2006 ; Fontana & Frey, 2000 ) with all participants with the goals of (1) triangulating others’ perspectives with those recorded by the journalists and (2) “understanding informants on their own terms and how they make meaning of their own lives” (Brenner, 2006 , p. 357). The interviewer (third author) let the informants speak about any aspect of the initiative or their professional practice at the forefront of their mind, at times pressing for more detail (Esterberg, 2002 ). The gist of all interviews was recorded in field notes, with verbatim passages when required to capture participant perspectives (Brenner, 2006 ). The interviewer was present in the school district and conducted informal interviews almost every day. Thus, all participants were interviewed regularly throughout the year.

Analysis proceeded as semantic excerpting, axial coding, then inferential analysis (Miles et al., 2020 ). All journal entries ( n  = 600) and interview notes ( n  = 491) were entered into a qualitative data analysis software platform ( www.dedoose.org ). Two coders (first and second authors) first examined the entries and collaboratively excerpted text in which participants identified factors that advanced the STEM PBL initiative ( affordances ) or those that hindered implementation of the initiative ( constraint s) and negotiated rules for these codes (Table  2 ). The two coders calibrated the coding of affordances and constraints to STEM until independent coding resulted in an acceptable agreement (Kappa = 0.77). The two coders then independently coded and regularly discussed 993 excerpts for the affordance and constraint factors. These excerpts were subsequently used as the unit of analysis. Participating educators’ excerpts were evenly distributed across grade levels, positions, journals, and interviews.

During the first-pass coding (affordance/constraint excerpting), coders attached memos to excerpts to identify factors participants associated with affordances and constraints. Six groups of factors were collaboratively identified as regularly indicated by participants: (1) external, (2) curriculum, (3) teacher, (4) administration, (5) district, and (6) fixed factors. Additionally, participants often discussed students but as different than the other factors. Further examination determined that participants often referenced students’ motivation or attendance as an outcome of the initiative but not necessarily an influence on the initiative. Student findings were therefore identified as elements of the initiative, as they were associated and meaningful to participants, yet they did not directly impact the initiative.

A second pass through the dataset followed the same coding process as the first, applying these seven identified factors and elements as codes (Table  2 ). The two coders first calibrated these factor codes as before and then independently applied the codes to the excerpts. These first levels of axial coding (Miles, et al., 2020 ) resulted in excerpts that were coded as affordances, constraints, or both, along with multiple factors and the students element. Code co-occurrence patterns indicated focus points for further analysis.

Following Miles et al. ( 2020 ), inferential analysis proceeded using a display matrix of affordance/constraint by the seven factors. To focus on the most common patterns we first collected groups of excerpts with high code co-occurrences (e.g. teachers x affordance ) and interrogated the collection through repeated readings guided by the following analytical questions (Miles et al., 2020 ):

What causes a factor to be associated with an affordance, a constraint, or both?

Which factors tend to co-occur within an excerpt and why?

Do participants identify some factors as more influential on affordances or constraints than others?

Patterns in the answers to these analytical questions were identified and negotiated, describing how individuals see affordances and constraints differently within the same factor and how interpersonal relationships mediate the perceptions of affordances and constraints. Answers to these questions that were consistent across multiple participants, triangulated across multiple events and sources, and not contradicted by answers generated from other excerpts are reported below (Miles et al., 2020 ).

To answer the research question, what do teachers and administrators identify as affordances and constraints to implementing district-wide STEM during the first years of a STEM conversion initiative, we first identified 513 excerpts in which participants identified only affordances to district-wide STEM, 369 excerpts indicating only constraints, and 111 excerpts identified as both. Table 3 shows the code co-occurrence frequencies resulting from the second round of coding while Table  4 lists examples of coded excerpts. Code co-occurrence frequencies initiated focus points for inferential analysis to suggest why participants associate these factors with affordances or constraints. Each collection of excerpts associated with each factor was interrogated by the first two authors and substantive results are presented in the following sections.

External Factors

Both teachers and administrators identified factors external to the district as affordances to implementing STEM PBL more often than as constraints (284:145; Table  3 ). Participants generally described these external factors as acting on curriculum and related resources as a mechanism for affording or, less often, constraining STEM implementation. These external factors did not impact students directly but changed the curriculum they interacted with.

Participants described the university STEM coach most consistently as an affordance. While some participants expressed that they did not see the coach as an affordance, none named her a constraint to implementing STEM. Participants varied in the aspects of the STEM coach that they most valued. Most valued the connectivity to external experts and other resources that she provided and the connectivity within the school district. A smaller number valued the mentorship, modeling, and instructional coaching she offered, though these teachers noted this role as being particularly impactful. We describe the actions and outcomes of the STEM coach in greater detail elsewhere (Giamellaro & Siegel, 2023 ).

Teachers and administrators described almost all other external factors to function as an affordance in some cases and as a constraint in other cases. Local professionals and companies, governmental organizations, and other partners were seen as affordances for developing or implementing authentic STEM projects. Experts provided STEM-specific content knowledge, venues for projects, contextualization of academic knowledge, curriculum planning support, ideas on local connections to the concepts of study, and a sense of partnership for the teachers. However, forming these partnerships, particularly without the STEM coach, was seen as a constraint. While the rural context facilitated some STEM partners (e.g., farmers, park rangers, a fertilizer company, etc.), teachers also described a lack of available external partners for a range of STEM topics due to the district's rural location (e.g., computer science, physical sciences, mathematics). Participants described parents as partners at times, notably when they acted as outside experts, but were also described as needy or as creating home lives that were detrimental to learning and particularly for project-based, intensive learning.

Teachers felt that external PD by the university partner, conferences, and other sources was generally a worthwhile affordance. Again, most of these opportunities were optional and variably utilized by different teachers. In addition to the local PD and graduate coursework, the university supported teachers to travel to other STEM schools for site visits, national conferences, and participation in other STEM-focused PD opportunities that teachers independently sought out. While most teachers reported that these opportunities were an affordance in helping them to visualize or enact STEM PBL, some teachers occasionally reported back that they were a disappointment because they highlighted practices or structures that “Crawford could never do.”

State mandates were often discussed as constraints, particularly regarding standards and required standardized testing. Elementary teachers and non-STEM secondary teachers reported that they felt conflicted between the district requirement to implement STEM PBL and state requirements to teach their discipline-specific standards. Several teachers also described an ethical commitment to teach true to their fields of study. Even teachers who accepted that science and Common Core standards could be more broadly integrated recognized that it would take a considerable amount of work to do so. It would run the risk of abandoning a lesson they knew worked well for their discipline standards. The state had adopted the NGSS a few years before this STEM initiative, though none of the teachers in the district had re-aligned to them. Following extensive PD and individualized coach supports, elementary and secondary science teachers did so as part of this initiative. Within the teachers’ journals and interviews, the NGSS were regularly referred to as a structure that helped teachers understand and plan for STEM lessons.

Participants regularly described state-level testing and student preparation for the tests as a significant constraint to implementing STEM PBL across the district. Even teachers who strongly believed in PBL worried that the approach would not prepare students well enough for the year-end tests. Administrators regularly communicated that they understood that there would be a transition period and would not hold teachers accountable for test results. Most teachers were wary of this assurance, wondering if it was true and what this would mean for the district’s reputation with the state department of education and with parents. Several teachers described feeling safer to do what they knew worked well for test results, even if that meant limited or no implementation of STEM or PBL.

Curriculum Factors

Curriculum factors often interacted with external, fixed, and district factors and student elements as the mechanism mediating whether those factors acted as affordances or constraints to the innovation (Table  3 ). In this way, curricula were also the primary mechanism that teachers described as most directly impacting students’ day-to-day STEM experience. Curriculum factors were also more often described as affordances than constraints (170:85, Table  3 ). When discussed independent of other factors, curricula were perceived as available or not, time-consuming or not, or cognitively accessible or not, and thus either an affordance or a constraint accordingly.

Teacher Factors

Teacher factors were perceived more often as affordances than constraints (243:184, Table  3 ). Teachers and administrators primarily described disposition and pedagogical skill as assigned to either specific individuals or generalized groups of the “good teachers” or the “bad teachers”. As would be expected, these were highly subjective assessments, and most teachers would be cast into either group by various other educators. In most cases, when teachers were discussed as affordances, and particularly constraints, to the STEM PBL initiative, the idea of good versus bad or specific dispositions were not explicitly attributed to any particular teachers, and we did not press participants to do so.

Dispositions identified by participants included “adaptable” versus “rigid”, “passionate” versus “checked-out”, “eager” versus “resistant”, “open” versus “cynical”, “collaborative” versus “territorial”, “independent” versus “needy”, “committed” versus “disinterested”, and “confident” versus “timid”. In most cases, participants described these dispositional qualities as inherent to individuals rather than specific responses to the STEM PBL initiative. Skills seen as affordances or constraints were similarly associated with teaching generally rather than STEM specifically. These included pedagogy, leadership, and technological savvy.

Despite teachers being the primary implementers of the innovation, or perhaps because of it, participants more often described teacher factors in isolation than the other factors. In other words, participants were more likely to associate teachers with affording or constraining some aspect of the STEM innovation, independent of curriculum, district, or other factors. Teachers were individually credited with taking on some aspect of STEM PBL and thereby advancing the initiative, or categorically rejecting the initiative, sending ripples of constraint throughout their immediate area of influence.

Administration and District Factors

We consider the administration and district factors together in this section. Although we as researchers coded them separately, deeper analysis of the excerpts suggested that participants closely associated these factors, for example associating district structures, policies, hiring, and spending as directly a function of administrative decisions. Further, participants may have been reticent to speak directly about specific administrators and therefore referred to the district more generally. Combined, administrative and district factors were coded as affordances in 120 excerpts and as constraints in 230 (Table  3 ). Although the administration launched the STEM initiative within the district, participants were three times more likely to identify administrative factors as constraints than affordances to implementing STEM (89:27, Table  3 ).

Affordances included planning and vision for STEM, connections to and marshaling of resources, oversight of the big picture for the innovation, enthusiasm for and movement towards the innovation, and overall setting the ethos for change. These affordances also had their corollary constraints: discordant visions within the administration, unfair or unjustified distribution of resources, ideas without training or support, and rushing decisions related to the innovation.

The most consistent perceptions of administrative constraints to the innovation involved aspects of the work climate not specific to STEM. Teachers, and even administrators, frequently reported a generally toxic climate set by the administration that included a lack of recognition for teachers, favoritism unrelated to job performance, power consolidation, a lack of transparency on decisions, and being unreceptive to feedback. While the excerpts largely represented the teachers rather than administrator views, it is worth noting that the administrators’ excerpts also identified most of these administrative constraints. Participants commonly indicated that administrative constraints also led to constraints within all other factors, except students, while they did not do so with administrative affordances.

Fixed Factors

Fixed factors such as time, schedule, state funding, etc., were described as both affordances and constraints (42:57, Table  3 ), but minimally and not as pivotal to the success or failure of the intervention. The mandate of state standardized testing requirements was the most commonly cited constraint to implementing STEM, as student success on the tests was seen as threatened by devoting time to STEM rather than test-specific content. While fixed factors were deemed only minimally impactful to the overall success of the implementation by study participants, they are included here as an acknowledgement of the possible strain mandated policies and factors beyond the immediate control of teachers, schools, and districts place on innovations such as this initiative.

When participants mentioned students, they almost always discussed them in conjunction with the factors influencing the success of STEM PBL implementation, such as external (home lives of students) or curriculum. Despite being one of the original justifications for the initiative, participants did not ascribe success or failure of the STEM innovation as directly mediated by students. As a result, students were not considered to be impacting the success of the STEM innovation.

Interactions Across Factors

To make sense of the process of implementing STEM PBL within this school district, we first grouped affordances and constraints identified by educators into like factors and identified patterns in how these factors were perceived to influence the rollout of the initiative. This approach tells part of the story but does not account for the nuance of how these factors evolved, interacted, and influenced individuals in different ways. The identified factors interacted with, attenuated, and exacerbated each other as both affordances and constraints.

Social interactions were perhaps the most important mediating phenomenon within this multi-factorial system in change. For participants, the success or failure of the innovation seemed primarily a function of the intentions and dispositions of other people in the school district and partners outside the district. This perception seemed to eclipse funding, curriculum, structures, students, and even other individuals’ actions. Given the entire body of data from across participants, we can see that these social interactions were complex and pervasive. Participants readily attributed their own ability to enact STEM as a function of their interactions with others. However, the perception of who afforded or constrained this ability was not at all consistent across the district.

No one person was consistently a lever in either direction of enactment. It is noteworthy that interactions with the STEM coach, whose entire job was focused on STEM implementation, were generally perceived as affordances. Interactions with the administration, the drivers of the initiative, but also managers of every other facet of the district, were most often perceived as constraints. Participants described administration-associated conditions as workplace climate, resource allocation, and inconsistent messaging. While these seem unrelated to implementation, participants described them as problematic because the STEM initiative required teachers to acquire support, collaborations, and resources outside of their established professional routines. Interactions with the STEM Coach were focused on one ultimate goal: STEM PBL implementation. Interactions with administrators were multifaceted and focused on STEM but also budgets, work duties, assessment, and many other considerations that are often associated with professional tension in a school system. While this administrative wearing of many hats may have been exacerbated within the small, rural district, there may be lessons to be learned about the division of responsibility within a systemic initiative.

Another critical pattern that became clear across participants and factors is that the district-wide STEM PBL initiative amplified the district’s existing positive and negative conditions. Teachers and administrators pursuing STEM PBL activated individual skill sets, dispositions, and social interactions in new ways that repositioned them to be particularly helpful or hurtful to implementing the innovation. The educators in the district did not have fixed qualities that would allow for a formulaic prediction of how they would contribute to an innovation. Rather, participants were changing their practices and professional identities in ways that were sometimes but not always perceived as productive. The systemic changes seemed to either exacerbate perceptions of individualized affordance and constraint or bring them to the surface in a way that was not apparent before the innovation. The expectation of “doing STEM” disallowed teachers to maintain structures that may have insulated them from some of the perceived frustrations that were smoldering before the initiative was introduced, such as frustration with administration. Conversely, the STEM mandate gave other teachers or even the same teachers license to work with outside experts and otherwise innovate their curriculum and pedagogies in ways that they may not have felt allowed to in the past.

School reform is always difficult, and the complexities of STEM and PBL are no exception as teachers navigate how to implement new ideas into the momentum of existing systems. If “STEM” is to become a cohesive construct rather than a label applied to existing but unaligned educational practice (Larkin & Lowrie, 2023 ; Siegel & Giamellaro, 2022 ), particularly if implemented at the system level, an intentional approach to implementation is required (Mäkelä et al., 2023 ). This is difficult as schools are known to be sites of struggle where conflicting agendas, norms, and expectations collide (Carlone et al., 2010 ). In the case reported here, implementing an innovation seemed to catalyze a sense of struggle as participants differentially worked toward implementing the changes, all with different understandings of what would help or hinder. As in previous work, the structure of social interactions was a determining driver of the change process (Lesseig et al., 2019 ; Mäkelä et al., 2023 ; Reinholz et al., 2019 ; Sannino & Nocon, 2008 ). In some ways, these patterns are not uncommon in a school setting (Aldridge & Fraser, 2016 ; Hall & Hord, 2015 ). However, the STEM innovation itself also seemed to either exacerbate these generalized perceptions of individualized affordance and constraint or bring them to the surface in a way that was not apparent before the innovation. In pursuing STEM PBL, participants activated individual skill sets, dispositions, and social interactions in new ways that repositioned them to be particularly helpful or hurtful to implementing the innovation.

The findings suggest that not all factors were equally impactful. As in Mäkelä et al. ( 2023 ), resources and collaboration in the form of partnerships, curriculum, and time (e.g.) were at times challenging for these participants, though these factors were also affordances for some participants in this study, suggesting that these factors are not inherently constraints to STEM implementation. Similarly, while Mäkelä et al. ( 2023 ) found flexibility and administrator involvement to be affordances, in this study, we found those factors to have variable influence. Long term vision was an affordance in both studies. Still, it is not clear if the variable impact of these factors would respond to changes in the system or if they have predictable associations with outcomes. There is a need to sort this out in future empirical research.

Systemic Change

The participants in this study indicated affordances and constraints to implementing STEM PBL, many of which acted at the system level. While district-wide change can be daunting and messy at this scale, the factors identified here provide a starting point to consider which aspects of the system need attending. These data suggest that curriculum is a good place to start, in that participants often described curricula as the mechanism through which other affordances or constraints acted. Our analysis of the data also suggested external factors, such as outside experts and partners, were generally an affordance that may have been particularly important to the change initiative’s STEM focus. Teachers were asked to implement new pedagogical approaches, add new and unfamiliar content knowledge and contextualize the knowledge in real-world projects. These external experts and resources were overwhelmingly seen as an affordance, if not a requirement, for successful STEM implementation.

Another approach to address the identified factors’ systemic interactions is to note where the entwined elements reach a functional nexus in the system (Reinholz et al., 2019 ). As the focus of schooling in general, students’ experience, learning, and development would be a natural nexus to examine. Given that the initiative was launched primarily as a mechanism to engage students and to redesign school as a place where student thinking, engagement, and motivation could be supported more robustly, it was surprising how rarely participants spoke about affordances and constraints in relation to the students themselves. Data presented elsewhere suggest teachers may not have had enough time or support with this STEM initiative to progress to a stage at which they were more focused on student outcomes than on logistics, management, and personal professional impact (Siegel & Giamellaro, 2022 ).

Teachers are the agents who consistently make small and large decisions about any innovation (Hall & Hord, 2015 ). As such, they also represent a lens to examine interactions at a nexus. Teachers directly impact STEM PBL implementation by deciding, for example, to enact STEM in their classrooms. Although all of the identified factors were interacting, they came to a head as teachers made daily and long-term decisions. Teacher decisions to implement STEM, or to what degree, can be analyzed to determine the suite of factors preceding these decisions. In this study, we found that teachers indicated multiple factors that either afforded or constrained their implementation in most cases. A decision to move forward on developing a STEM project may have happened as a function of the STEM coach connecting to an outside expert, the administration granting a planning day, student interest in the idea, and personal motivation to do school differently. A lack of any one of those factors could derail the whole endeavor. Conversely, a teacher deciding not to enact a STEM project due to time constraints, content knowledge, or a vague sense of mission from the administration could be affected by minor changes to one or all of those factors.

This change initiative placed significant responsibility on teachers, regardless of their motivation to participate. There is both value and risk to analyzing teacher-level affordances and constraints. Outcomes of change initiatives may be attributed solely to teacher disposition or motivation if the multi-factorial nature of these affordances and constraints are not recognized. In this case study, successes and failures were credited to teachers and were often intertwined with their perceived dispositions. This practice has much peril, as an effective teacher in one area could potentially be marked as resistant to change in a case when they are using their professional judgement to do what they believe is best for their students. However, celebrating successes could also inspire future change. This finding corroborates previous work that has found teachers’ affective dispositions to be a significant predictor of the effectiveness of STEM implementation at the system level (Brown & Bogiages, 2019 ; Burton et al., 2022 ).

Administrators represent a third nexus where the identified factors are implemented as complex interactions. The administration had an outsized role in determining how factors would operate within the district and in driving a local vision of what STEM and PBL mean. The data presented here represent teachers’ emic perspectives as they worked through a challenging change process. It is natural for leadership to become a focus of frustrations one is experiencing with change (Hall & Hord, 2015 ). However, school change is implemented at the individual level (Hall & Hord, 2015 ). Participants in this case study seemed to detect an adversarial tone from the administration they believed constrained the innovation more often than administrative vision afforded STEM implementation. As in previous work, the structure of social interactions was a determining driver of the change process (Sannino & Nocon, 2008 ). In such a school change process, administrators must create a supportive and positive climate to be successful (Aldridge & Fraser, 2016 ). The participants in this study identified this as a gap and a threat to the innovation. Although the administration had mandated and was driving the innovation, inadvertently, they may have been a significant constraint to its success, a constraint noted in other systems as well (Reinholz et al., 2021 ).

Individual Change

It was clear from this case study that change was evolving systemically but experienced individually. An affordance for one participant could be a constraint for another. Individual perspectives on affordances and constraints varied widely, and participants experienced different factors in different ways. This variability may be partially explained as a function of differing motivations of early adopters, resistors, and people who needed to be supported well enough to adopt (Hall & Hord, 2015 ). The data suggest that the reality was more complex. While we did not try to characterize educators’ motivations, they all reported both affordances and constraints. Certainly, some participants were more invested in the change process, and even this evolved over time. Any individual’s perceptions of which factor tended to serve as an affordance and which tended toward constraint were also influenced by the grade and subject they taught, their background and training, their STEM interest and STEM identity, their professional beliefs, and their relationships with others, particularly administrators. All teachers in the district, including science and math teachers, were asked to change their practice and their perceptions of their own and new disciplines. In an integrated form, STEM may be unique in asking this of teachers when implementation is at the district level.

Although there is often tension between teachers and administrators who have both common and competing concerns, in this case, tension seemed to be the greatest threat to the initiative. The administrators were highly invested in STEM PBL and made significant systemic moves to make it happen. However, these interventions did not support STEM PBL in ways that many teachers found useful or even necessary. The systemic approach was needed, but an approach that honored individual and varied needs for support may have been required to achieve more widespread investment from the teachers tasked with implementation. As with many tensions in education, a balance needs to be found between the individual and the whole. A move toward meeting individualized needs is indicated to the extent that is possible.

Implications

It is important to consider that we are limited to participants’ perspectives in this study. Our task was to find patterns across those perspectives that might indicate trends across the district and that could potentially show up in other districts trying a similar initiative. This case study could inform future school change initiatives, particularly in small, rural contexts where individuals have an outsized impact.

In future district-wide STEM initiatives, we suggest considering how each of the seven factors are going to be addressed and making a plan to leverage those factors so they serve as affordances rather than constraints. Implementors and teaching faculty, in particular, must be brought into these conversations as they may not all experience a planned approach to leveraging a factor as an affordance. There must be an acknowledgment that a singular approach may not be practical for all. However, there is also a danger in being too scattered. In this case, participants sought a more cohesive approach and messaging from the administration, yet valued individualized support, and became frustrated with their unique constraints. District-wide STEM initiatives must find a balance between groups and individual supports, and this must be planned for and monitored throughout the change process.

Conversion to STEM and school change, in general, requires two levels of intervention. We must support affordances to STEM and minimize constraints experienced across the district or unit of change. We must also attend to those affordances and constraints that individuals are experiencing. If individual teacher needs are not met, change seems unlikely. If change is not addressed cohesively, changes seem equally unlikely.

Limitations

This study was embedded in the context of a single, rural school district implementing their own vision of STEM And PBL (Siegel & Giamellaro, 2022 ). The participants were enmeshed in a specific context of policy, training, culture, and school systems. The study predominantly relied on participant perspectives and provided an emic view of their lived experiences. Our analyses also added the etic lens of the researchers’ interpretations and pattern-finding with the rich text of the data. Thus, the findings cannot be generalized to other systems and should be interpreted as a starting point for inquiry or practice rather than specific guidelines.

The district’s small size limited our ability to aggregate teachers for analysis. For example, there is only one math and one science teacher in the middle school and one each in the high school, making it difficult to discern whether those teachers’ perceptions were due to their discipline or some other individual characteristic or experience. In larger aggregations (e.g., elementary and secondary), we found similar variations of patterns within groups as we did across groups. Thus, these analyses represent the whole group of participants when not otherwise indicated.

The promise of STEM as a needed reform and promising approach to preparing the next generation of change-makers is now widely accepted (Agussuryani et al., 2022 ; Martín‐Páez et al., 2019 ; Wan et al., 2023 ). Because STEM is still being defined and bounded, it can catalyze tensions when visions are ambitious but murky. In this case, district-wide implementation of an innovation, STEM PBL, introduced increased complexity as practitioners renegotiated identities and re-established roles they played with their colleagues and found their footing amongst shifting district expectations. Teachers need more clarity and guidance on STEM PBL, at both the individual and district levels than might be otherwise expected for more familiar-feeling initiatives. Additionally, STEM puts new demands on financial resources and practitioner responsibility, particularly in a small school district. In this case, and likely in others, social patterns may become chaotic and lead to additional problems within the structures and culture of a school.

Agussuryani, Q., Sudarmin, S., Sumarni, W., Cahyono, E., & Ellianawati, E. (2022). STEM literacy in growing vocational school student HOTS in science learning: A meta-analysis. International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE), 11 (1), 51–60. https://doi.org/10.11591/ijere.v11i1.21647

Aldridge, J. M., & Fraser, B. J. (2016). Teachers’ views of their school climate and its relationship with teacher self-efficacy and job satisfaction. Learning Environments Research, 19 (2), 291–307.

Article   Google Scholar  

Brenner, M. E. (2006). Interviewing in educational research. In J. L. Green, G. Camilli, & P. B. Elmore (Eds.), Handbook of complementary methods in education research (pp. 357–370). Routledge.

Google Scholar  

Brown, R. E., & Bogiages, C. A. (2019). Professional development through STEM integration: How early career math and science teachers respond to experiencing integrated STEM tasks. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 17 (1), 111–128. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-017-9863-x

Burton, M., Maiorca, C., & Tripp, L. O. (2022). The relationship between teacher candidates’ affective dispositions and instructional planning actions in STEM. Education Sciences, 12 (2), 82. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12020082

Carlone, H. B., Kimmel, S., & Tschida, C. (2010). A rural math, science, and technology elementary school tangled up in global networks of practice. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 5 (2), 447–476. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-009-9233-2

Chiu, A., Price, C. A., & Ovrahim, E. (2015, April). Supporting elementary and middle school STEM education at the whole-school level: A review of the literature . Paper presented at the NARST, Chicago. https://www.msichicago.org/fileadmin/assets/educators/science_leadership_initiative/SLI_Lit_Review.pdf

Datnow, A., Hubbard, L., & Mehan, H. (1998). Educational reform implementation: A co-constructed process (pp. 1–25). Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence.

Esterberg, K. G. (2002). Qualitative methods in social research . McGraw Hill.

Fontana, A., & Frey, J. H. (2000). The interview: From structured questions to negotiated text. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 645–672). Sage.

Gardner, M., & Tillotson, J. W. (2019). Interpreting integrated STEM: Sustaining pedagogical innovation within a public middle school context. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 17 , 1283–1300.

Giamellaro, M., & Siegel, D. R. (2018). Coaching teachers to implement innovations in STEM. Teaching and Teacher Education, 76 , 25–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2018.08.002

Giamellaro, M., & Siegel, D. (2023). Bridging and brokering across communities of practice: A STEM coach’s role in helping teachers access expertise. EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science & Technology Education, 19 (3), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12966

Hall, G. E., & Hord, S. M. (2015). Implementing change: Patterns, principles, and potholes (2nd ed.). Allyn and Bacon.

Holmlund, T. D., Lesseig, K., & Slavit, D. (2018). Making sense of “STEM education” in K-12 contexts. International Journal of STEM Education , 5 (1), 32. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-018-0127-2

Hutner, T. L., Sampson, V., Chu, L., Baze, C. L., & Crawford, R. H. (2022). A case study of science teachers’ goal conflicts arising when integrating engineering into science classes. Science Education, 106 (1), 88–118. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21690

Kelley, T., Knowles, J., Holland, J., & Han, J. (2020). Increasing high school teachers self-efficacy for integrated STEM instruction through a collaborative community of practice. International Journal of STEM Education , 7 (1), 14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-020-00211-w

Larkin, K., & Lowrie, T. (2023). Teaching approaches for STEM integration in pre- and primary school: A systematic qualitative literature review. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 21 (Suppl. 1), 11–39. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-023-10362-1

Lesseig, K., Firestone, J., Morrison, J., Slavit, D., & Holmlund, T. (2019). An analysis of cultural influences on STEM schools: Similarities and differences across K-12 contexts. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 17 , 449–466.

Mäkelä, T., Tuhkala, A., Mäki-Kuutti, M., & Rautopuro, J. (2023). Enablers and constraints of STEM programme implementation: An external change agent perspective from a national STEM programme in Finland. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 21 (3), 969–991. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-022-10271-9

Martín-Páez, T., Aguilera, D., Perales-Palacios, F. J., & Vílchez-González, J. M. (2019). What are we talking about when we talk about STEM education? A Review of Literature. Science Education, 103 (4), 799–822. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21522

Miles, M. B., Huberman, M. A., & Saldana, J. (2020). Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook (4th ed.). SAGE.

O’Dwyer, A., Hourigan, M., Leavy, A. M., & Corry, E. (2023). “I have seen STEM in action and it’s quite do-able!” The impact of an extended professional development model on teacher efficacy in primary STEM education. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 21 (Suppl. 1), 131–157. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-023-10361-2

Reinholz, D. L., Ngai, C., Quan, G., Pilgrim, M. E., Corbo, J. C., & Finkelstein, N. (2019). Fostering sustainable improvements in science education: An analysis through four frames. Science Education, 103 (5), 1125–1150. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21526

Reinholz, D. L., White, I., & Andrews, T. (2021). Change theory in STEM higher education: A systematic review. International Journal of STEM Education, 8 (1), 37. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-021-00291-2

Sannino, A., & Nocon, H. (2008). Special issue editors’ introduction: Activity theory and school innovation. Journal of Educational Change, 9 (4), 325–328. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-008-9079-5

Severance, S., Penuel, W. R., Sumner, T., & Leary, H. (2016). Organizing for teacher agency in curricular co-design. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 25 (4), 531–564. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2016.1207541

Siegel, D., & Giamellaro, M. (2020). Defining STEM within a school district: A co-constructed and evolving process. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 15 , 739–773. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-019-09959-2

Siegel, D., & Giamellaro, M. (2022). Non-STEM teachers finding their place in STEM. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 33 (6), 579–597. https://doi.org/10.1080/1046560X.2021.1968992

Thibaut, L., Ceuppens, S., De Loof, H., De Meester, J., Goovaerts, L., Struyf, A., Boeve-de Pauw, J., Dehaene, W., Deprez, J., De Cock, M., Hellinckx, L., Knipprath, H., Langie, G., Struyven, K., Van de Velde, D., Van Petegem, P., & Depaepe, F. (2018). Integrated STEM education: A systematic review of instructional practices in secondary education. European Journal of STEM Education , 3 (1). https://doi.org/10.20897/ejsteme/85525

United States Census Bureau. (2018). Annual estimates of the resident Population for incorporated places: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2018 . Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/time-series/demo/popest/2010s-total-cities-and-towns.html

Vaval, L., Bowers, A. J., & Snodgrass Rangel, V. (2019). Identifying a typology of high schools based on their orientation toward STEM: A latent class analysis of HSLS:09. Science Education, 103 (5), 1151–1175. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21534

Wan, Z. H., So, W. M. W., & Zhan, Y. (2023). Investigating the effects of design-based STEM learning on primary students’ STEM creativity and epistemic beliefs. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 21 (Suppl. 1), 87–108. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-023-10370-1

Yin, R. K. (2009). Case study research: Design and methods (4th ed.). SAGE.

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all of the teachers, students, and administrators who participated in this project.

The work presented here was supported by funding from the Title II-A Oregon University-School Partnership Grant program [Grant Number #TRSUB14.07 (CFDA No. 84.367)] and the Oregon Department of Education’s STEM Lab School Grant [Grant Number 31322].

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Science Education, Oregon State University, College of Education, Cascades Campus, Bend, OR, USA

Michael Giamellaro

Lincoln County School District, Newport, OR, USA

Benjamin Ewing

Institute for Learning Innovation, Corvallis, OR, USA

Deborah Siegel

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael Giamellaro .

Ethics declarations

Ethical approval.

All procedures performed in this study involving human subjects were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution, US Federal Common Rule 45.46 governing human subjects in research, and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Signed, informed consent was obtained from all individual participants in the study.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Giamellaro, M., Ewing, B. & Siegel, D. Affordances and Constraints to Implementing Project-Based STEM: A Case Study of Systemic School Change. Int J of Sci and Math Educ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-024-10487-x

Download citation

Received : 27 June 2023

Accepted : 05 July 2024

Published : 02 August 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-024-10487-x

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Project Based Learning
• Research-Practice Partnership
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

• Initiatives
• Mentoring Committee

INFORMATION FOR

• Residents & Fellows
• Researchers

Black Youth Mental Health Clinical Case Conference Series at Yale Child Study Center

Session 4 of 6

Session Details & Continuing Education Credits

Associate Medical Director of the Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital’s Children’s Psychiatric Inpatient Service Laine Taylor, DO will present at this fourth of six case conferences, with expert discussants Ruby Lekwauwa, MD and Tami Benton, MD. This in-person session will be interactive and attendees will be encouraged to engage in a round-table discussion. Registration is required.

The series has been approved for eligibility for Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits. Yale School of Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians. Individual event designation details are provided at applicable live events. CEUs through the National Association of Social Workers are pending.

All sessions in the series have also been approved for two cultural competence CEUs . T his program has been approved for continuing education Credit Hours by the National Association of Social Workers, CT and meets the continuing education criteria for CT LMSWs, LMFTS, LPC and licensed psychologists. Additional information and instructions for obtaining CEUs will be provided at the event.

America is in the midst of a Youth Mental Health Crisis, but Black youth have been in crisis for over 20 years. Black youth suicide rates are rising faster than any other racial/ethnic group, Black children are the most likely to be physically restrained in emergency departments, and Black youth are more likely to be diagnosed with disruptive mood disorders than white children with comparable symptomatology. A mounting number of studies document the adverse mental health effects of anti-Black racism on Black children, even before birth. The stress of anti-Black racism experienced by Black mothers, including experiencing inferior care by healthcare providers, has been linked to low birthweight babies, putting Black infants at greater risk for developing depression and other mental health disorders. There is a clear lack of awareness, education, and accountability for the devastating lapses in care that Black children and families can receive in the healthcare system, which undoubtedly affect their mental and physical wellbeing. There is an urgent need for dynamic, expert-led conversations to generate ideas and transform mental healthcare for Black youth and families.

Series Details

The Yale Child Study Center is pleased to host its inaugural Black Youth Mental Health Clinical Case Conference Series, directed by Dr. Amanda J. Calhoun , MD, MPH, Chief Resident & Child Psychiatry Fellow, under the advisement of Dr. Mark Beitel , PhD, Research Scientist. The series is endorsed by Dr. Linda Mayes , MD, Department Chair; Tara Davila , LCSW, YCSC Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion; and Dr. Darin Latimore , Deputy Dean for Diversity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer at Yale School of Medicine.Six mental health clinical case conferences will be held from January through June 2024. Local participants are strongly encouraged to attend in person, though a virtual option will be made available if needed, and for those joining from a distance. Invited expert discussants, from within Yale and beyond, will weigh in on complex clinical cases involving Black youth presented by Yale Child Study Center trainees. Learn more.

Dinner will be provided and registration is required for each case conference . There is no requirement to attend all sessions; participants can register for the sessions individually.

The Black Youth Mental Health Clinical Case Conference Series at the Yale Child Study Center is supported by funding from the Yale Child Study Center Viola W. Bernard Social Justice and Health Equity Fellowship, the Yale School of Medicine Office of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, and the AMA – SHLI Medical Justice in Advocacy Fellowship Program.

Related Media

Black youth mental health clinical case conference series.

A conference for empowerment and innovation

Laine Taylor, DO

Ruby lekwauwa, md.

• Tami Benton, MD

Register now; e-mail: [email protected]

Black Youth Mental Health Clinical Case Conference Series Flyer

A conference series for empowerment and innovation.

Jan-June 2024

Start 6:00Pm-8:15PM

Registration required.

• Laine Taylor, DO Consulting Psychiatrist ACCESS Mental Health
• Ruby Lekwauwa, MD Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
• Tami Benton

Host Organization

• Child Study Center

Related Links

• How Medical Racism Exacerbates the Black Youth Mental Health Crisis
• View January Session
• View February Session
• View March Session
• View May Session
• View June Session