Case study is an investigation with a focus on a certain aspect of a particular phenomenon to gain an understanding of its meaning in its own and possibly wider situations. Yin (2006) argues that case study may be used to tease out the specificity of the phenomenon selected for the research, a specificity which makes it different from other phenomena, but which may produce research outcomes from which generalisations may be made to a wider context. Merriam (1998) argues that case study is used to generate a deep understanding of contexts and meanings in relation to what is being investigated. Case study method, then, allows researchers to conduct detailed investigation of particular phenomena of interest in particular contexts (Hartley, 2004; Stake, 1995).
Given Yin’s (2006) view of case study as being based on real life experience rather than what may occur in laboratory or clinical trials, it is a method that is appropriate in interpretivist qualitative research. Case study as a method, as George (2006) argues, allows the researcher to conduct a detailed examination of an aspect of a phenomenon in order to develop an understanding of it as a whole. The strength of case study lies in its focus on interactive processes within specific phenomenon to identify in some detail all that may come into play (Bell, 1993). The very specificity of detail allows for fine-grained research foci that allow the researcher to avoid the broad brush stroke approaches of other methods. In my research, I have applied that detailed focus to a specific area of North East China, and then on two regions within it, and then on school sites within those regions in order to pick up on details of EFL curriculum as they play out in individual teachers’ classrooms within the larger context of the vast country that is China. This has allowed me to pick out details for focussed attention, and on the basis of these, generate a number of knowledgeable insights to the national EFL curriculum reform and national outcomes of its implementation. According to Merriam (1998), case study focuses on studying the key features of a case—processes, contexts and discoveries—a concept on which I have drawn in designing my research
According toYin (2006), researchers taking up case study method consider three factors: research topics, contexts and data sources. This is particularly so with
regard to a focus on an investigation of a current phenomenon in a real context (Yin, 2003a, 2003b, 2006). Hartley (2004) points out that case study ‘is particularly suited to research questions which require detailed understanding of social or organizational processes because of the rich data collected in context’ (p. 323). I have drawn on these perspectives to take up case study as it has allowed me to highlight major issues raised by my research question: In what ways is the current EFL curriculum reform linked to globalization? This question has guided me to an emphasis on the contexts in which the reform under study has been positioned, and ways in which it has been initiated and implemented on the basis of documents, interviews and a questionnaire. Such consideration feeds into what case study elaborates.
Case study has allowed me to approach the selection of one province, Liaoning Province in North East China, and two sites within that province as being typical of representative features of the case, a bounded study, as suggested by Stake (1995). I have approached EFL curriculum reform in China as not being an isolated
education phenomenon, having situated it in the context of constantly changing and complex political, social and economic developments. Such an approach to my investigation has enabled me to generate a general view of the reform being implemented throughout China as a whole. As Yin (2003a) argues, case study is to
‘cover contextual or complex multivariate conditions and not just isolated variables’ (p. xi).
Case study further allows the use of single or multiple strategies for in-depth analysis of a single phenomenon (Creswell, 1994, 1998, 2007; Jones, 2006; Kumar, 2005). As Yin (2006) argues, multiple data resources may be used in case study method as they may provide different ‘logics and evidences’ (Hartley, 2004, p. 24), to approach issues of validity, or in my case, trustworthiness, in conducting
research. On the basis of such considerations, I have used multiple research strategies: a questionnaire, interviews and document analysis. As Hartley (2004) argues, researchers use case study on the basis of rich data sources to explore the phenomenon under study in relation to detailed and complex interactions and processes that occur within a social context.
According to Stake (1995), case study enables the researcher to learn about a particular case on the basis of the researchers’ interests, and this is consistent with my consideration of taking up this research. I have used case study as my research method to enable me to generate a deep understanding of what the reform under study means in the context of China. As Merriam (1988) points out, case study is used to ‘gain an in-depth understanding of the situation and its meaning for those involved’ (p. xii).
As I have drawn upon phenomenology to underpin my research on the basis of participant EFL teachers’ lived experience of the reform under study, I have explored the EFL curriculum reform in relation to participant EFL teachers’ lived experience of it in the context of globalization. I have done this to obtain relevant insights to the reform under study. My use of case study is an acknowledgment of the uniqueness of what these participant EFL teachers have experienced in
implementing the reform under study because this has allowed me to, as Stake (1995) would have it, ‘come to know extensively and intensively’ (p. 36) about the meanings and contexts of the reform implemented in North East China and ways in which these teachers have experienced implementing it. My study of two sites within one case has enabled me to emphasize the experience of participants by allowing them to reflect on it, contributing to an understanding of this reform, and sharing this with me. This has allowed me to generate what Stake (1995) refers to as
‘thick description’ of their lived experience (p. 39). Those ‘thick’ descriptions that Stake (1995) refers to are the in-depth and detailed reports of experience in research which, in the hands of a researcher, produce what may be considered virtual sentences that make the readers feel that they seem to experience the phenomenon being studied (Creswell & Miller, 2000). Thick description is to uncover what lived experience would convey in research (Stake, 1978, 1995, 2000).
Critics of case study as a research method focus on its very nature of being a single case. Criticism hinges on the suggestion that it is the single case that renders it ineffective when it comes to providing researchers with an acceptable research conclusion (Tellis, 1997). One of the earliest and most persistent criticisms of case study has been in regard to the extent to which it may be used to generalize to inform other cases or to apply to other settings (Sturman, 1999). As Flyvbjerg
(2006a) argues, a number of scholars consider that case study cannot allow generalizability on the basis of a single case, implying that such a process is subjective and illogical, and so do not accept it as appropriate method for research on that basis (Flyvbjerg, 2006b). Such views of case study emerge from the literature, highlighting case study method’s ‘lack of rigor’ and ‘little basis for scientific generalization’ (Yin, 1994, p. 10). Such perspectives raise issues of trustworthiness in relation to case study method.
In dealing with such concerns, I have drawn on the work of scholars such as Yin (2006), Stake (1995) and Hamel, Dufour, and Fortin (1993) in relation to these issues. They identify the uniqueness and specificity of case study not as weaknesses in the method, but strengths the researcher may draw on in those details are made visible in thick descriptions that demonstrate ways in which issues emerge from cases. These are, as Stake (1995) says, ‘…intricately wired to political, social, historical and especially personal contexts’ (p. 17). It is the intricacies that give the case study its strength as a method, for as Hamel (1993) observes, ‘…case study has proven to be in complete harmony with the three key words that characterize any qualitative method: describing, understanding and explaining’ (p. 39). My research has focused on ‘describing, understanding and explaining’ the lived experience of EFL teachers in a region of China in the sort of detail that case study method enables, and from this I have been able to identify features and intent of the curriculum reform as played out successfully or otherwise in the individual teachers’ professional lives.