ABSTRACT
The ‘case study’ is a teaching method that has been widely exploited in professional education for well over a century. As an established pedagogic tradition, the case study method is closely associated with the teaching of law, business and management, and the medical sciences (Kreber, 2001). However, it is by no means confined to these disciplinary fields and is also strongly represented in engineering, geography and several other subject areas. The case study can be described as an approach to teaching which presents both fictionalized and factual accounts of life and events in a wide range of organizational and professional settings. It is ‘a detailed description of a particular real life situation or problem as it happened in the past and could happen in the professional life of the student’ (Kreber, 2001: 222). The use of a narrative account, building a sometimes exciting and gradually unfolding story, has the advantage of engaging student interest at a deeper level of learning (Roselle, 1996). Telling an interesting, concise story is only one element of a good case study. It should also be thought provoking, include central characters with whom students can empathize, lack answers which are patently clear cut and get students to think (Gross Davis, 1993).
