Page 35 - Case Lab Summary

ensuring a memorable learning experience that may be more readily
transferred to the learner’s own work situation.

What is a short case study, what purpose does it serve and what are
its objectives? Are they simply short for short’s sake, pithy, focused
and directed or are they a substitute for in-depth thinking and

analysis, construction effort, and hard research? Or perhaps they are
a response to the demands of falling teaching contact hours and the
need to provide learners with easily comprehended, less demanding

and digestible teaching material? Or perhaps it is all of these?

There are innumerable truisms associated with the case method

such as:

• Case studies are puzzles to which many answers exist.
• Case analysis is about reading, understanding and making your

own decision on a solution to the problems set.
• Cases give you the opportunity to practice and hone your
decision -making skills.

• Problem solving ability is a desirable attribute in most work-
place situations and one that allows you to stand out from the

crowd.
• At the most basic level cases are teaching and learning vehicles
which allows the lecturer to address the needs of the learner.

However, the short case study is an emerging force in the case
method arsenal one that is offering a vehicle that equally addresses

the truisms set out above and the objectives of both the lecturer and
learner, if handled correctly.

It would be true to say that business courses have changed in the

last twenty years! For one thing, class contact has reduced to the
point where a module may now only have an effective contact period

of nine or less weeks. The impact of this is that material coverage is

limited with the knock-on-effect that traditional cases of fifteen to
thirty pages are inappropriate in that they inevitably cover theory not

taught in class.