ABSTRACT
Case studies in various forms trace their origins to ancient Greece and China. Myths, for example, were allegorical narratives of episodes in the lives of legendary figures and served an important purpose by instructing the masses in the moral way of life. More recently, theorists such as John Dewey, Alfred North Whitehead, Jerome Bruner, Jean Piaget, and Benjamin Bloom contributed to the development of case method learning. Bloom's Taxonomy also has implications for case method application. Case studies are effective in the practice of Bloom's higher-level thinking skills of application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The impetus for developing and publishing case studies in the field of educational administration waned in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. Ironically, this decline in the use of practical reality-based case studies and simulations occurred at the same time that traditional preparation programs for educational administrators were coming under frequent attack.
