Embedded Case Study Methods. Integrating Quantitative and Qualitative Knowledge

Citation

Burger, P. (2006), "Embedded Case Study Methods. Integrating Quantitative and Qualitative Knowledge", International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 7 No. 3, pp. 352-356. https://doi.org/10.1108/14676370610677892

Project courses, case studies, as well as problem‐based learning (PBL) are well‐established didactic means within academic and non‐academic education. PBL, for example, is said to enhance student's learning skills in working cooperatively in groups to seek solutions to real world problems (Duch, 2001). Frey (1993) has proved and compared their learning effectiveness. Accordingly, Scholz and Tietje are able to refer to a number of disciplines with experience in case studies (Chapter 3). Moreover, within academic training in the domain of sustainability science (science understood in the broader non‐Anglo‐Saxon sense of academic endeavours in general) group work, projects and case studies have been looked upon as promising instruments for the special kind of scientific training committed to inter‐ and transdisciplinary scientific practice from the very beginning. In accordance with the variety of what has been subsumed under “inter‐ and transdisciplinary” however, actual educational practice encompasses a heterogeneous set of project‐oriented courses until recently. On the one end of the option continuum there are advocates of a primarily experience‐oriented approach, focussing on practical skills such as communication with actors without using specific scientific, integrative methods (or even more radical: by denying that there are specific integrative methods at hand). At the other extreme there are proponents of project type courses that are primarily oriented towards applying classic (in general disciplinary) methods on a specific subject (for example, modelling the distribution of specific pollutants within the atmosphere). What makes Roland Scholz and Olaf Tietje's book on “Embedded Case Study Methods” a breakthrough is, that it allows avoiding the sketched choice between Scylla and Charybdis. They have formed a basis for a methodologically oriented academic training in case a curriculum contains learning objectives in regard of transdisciplinary‐oriented scientific practice.

As the book title makes clear, there is no point in talking of a method. What the book presents are descriptions of a set of different methods in addition with reflections and proposals how to fit them together. Accordingly, the book does not offer a recipe, but describes methods being in need for adaptation to a given teaching situation. They may be viewed as providing tools regarding specific goals in setting for scientific sustainability education, such as that you want to deal scientifically with “ill‐defined problems” (initial state is not precisely described, target is not sufficiently known, p. 26), that you want to contribute to possible options for handling the problem in question, that you intend to co‐operate with societal actors and to integrate them into the case study (to accept them as subjects within the process, not only as objects of enquiry), and, finally, that you will have a population of students with enough skills and motivation to successfully work within such a setting.

Although the methods are conceivably categorized by the authors as “description methods” “case evaluation methods” “case transition methods” and “case study team methods” (p. 75), another scheme seems also to be appropriate at least for the purpose of this review, namely:

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  “imported or adapted scientific methods”;

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  “core area methods”;

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  “participation tools”; and

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  “management rules”.

Each of the presented methods is said to represent a mode of knowledge integration, be it the interdisciplinary integration of disciplinary knowledge, systems knowledge, modes of thought, or integration of interests (p. 68). Which of them should become part of the case study is dependent on:

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  the specific knowledge desiderata and the respective appropriateness of the methods (p. 72); and

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  the trade off between the specific scientific point of view and the total study team point of view, the latter of course including also societal actors (p. 74).

The first group (imported or adapted scientific methods) contains well‐known tools such as system dynamics, multi‐attribute utility theory (MAUT), risk analysis (in the form of the agent oriented feature “Integrated Risk Management”), life cycle assessment or material flux analysis. Scholz and Tietje also introduced an additional method called bio‐ecological potential analysis relying on evolutionary, developmental, and cybernetic system theories. It displays structural elements of evolutionary theories such as productivity, resilience, and diversity and is recommended for regional projects.

Innovative and most interesting are the elements within the second group (core area methods). On the one hand the total setting may be said to be a method itself. The setting presupposes the forming up of a transdisciplinary study team, consisting of societal actors and scientists sharing responsibility for the whole process. The existing time resources will normally not allow to include the students from the very beginning and to let them participate in the process of question forming. Thus, students will become part of the team only after the case study team has already been formed. On the other hand the setting involves what may be viewed as the core method of the embedded case study approach, a qualitative scenario analysis (formative scenario analysis). Neither scenario analysis nor the underlying system modelling is really new. There are, however, special features introduced by Scholz and Tietje. Firstly, a computer program has been developed to support both system modelling as well as scenario building. Secondly, the impact matrix represents a qualitative view on the system. Although there may exist well‐founded data and differential equation to calculate the impact of the variables in question, the impact measurement is done qualitatively using a scale from 0 to 5. Thirdly, the same is true for scenario building and its consistency analysis. Fourthly, stakeholders and scientific experts are involved. The system model as well as proposed scenarios are not only assessed but also controlled with respect to their adequacy (Are the chosen impact factors relevant? Does impact estimation correspond to experience or to expertise? Do scenarios look like being at least intuitively consistent?).

The rationale for this approach is quite obvious: If we need a better understanding of options for agents to act, we may represent these options as scenarios. Moreover, since scenarios allow for an assessment of their potential consequences, usefulness, etc. it becomes possible to arrange the traditional methods from group one around the formative scenario analysis with respect to their functional role. Although it will certainly never be the case that a student group will use them all within a single course, the setting provides the teacher with a structure adaptable to the specific case and situation.

The function and the necessity of the participation tools (third group) now also become evident. Participatory instruments are of importance in two respects. Firstly, you need them in order to build the study group. You have to define common guiding questions and goals and to define responsibilities. As far as I can see it, however, the authors understand that stage of the process as part of the case study team methods (e.g. belonging to group iv, see next section). Secondly, you need instruments on the one hand in order to deal with competing interests and on the other hand for constructing scenarios (or at least for defining concrete objectives) by the actors themselves. Accordingly, mediation and future workshops are described as instruments to deal with interests and goal forming, respectively. The book presents mediation as a kind of informed policy process. “Informed” thereby means that negotiation will be supported by case comprehension and assessment tools (such that it will not only be a bargaining, but also a mutual learning process). Additionally, Scholz and Tietje also describe the essentials of future workshop.

Finally, a case study needs structure (project architecture) and management, and hence management rules. If you want societal actors to take responsibility for the case study in question, e.g. for the teaching course it represents, you need more than classical project management instruments. Negotiations on guiding questions (and thus on the content of the case study) will be an important part of the project as well as feedback from stakeholders to student. Chapter 16 together with pp. 55‐60 provide information on structuring and managing such a project. As I already mentioned, management itself is not part of the student's duty, but part of the setting that enables the students to proceed.

The rationale of the Scholz and Tietje's approach is compelling. The formation of scenarios and their analytical evaluation as options for actions can be considered as masterpiece of sustainability science – at least if one is ready to understand sustainability science as means to shape and steer development processes by informed decision making, as I do. Master programs for sustainable development – now emerging at least within Europe in a number of places – without either some sort of embedded case study or an equivalent of it cannot be viewed as displaying the state of the art within higher education. That every teacher has to adopt the setting with respect to her boundary conditions (type of students and expertise – social or natural science or both – number of credit points available, teaching resources, etc.) goes without saying.

There are, however, at least two topics I would like to address in addition. On the one hand, we have to take into consideration at least two potential shortcomings of the approach. On the other hand, I want to scrutinize the availability of potential alternatives.

Let us start with the potential shortcomings. Firstly, the set of methods contains no tools concerning normative issues in sustainability settings (such as environmental ethics or, better, justice, for example). However, difficult it is to operationalize a notion such as intergenerational justice, there can be no doubt that it is a constitutive element of the sustainability concept. A MAUT cannot replace analytic approaches to just distribution of costs and benefits say in regional development processes. According to Grunwald and Lingner (2002, p. 72) it will not be possible to analyse and discuss conflict‐ridden sustainability issues relying but on integrated modelling and scenario building. They explicitly call for normative reflection in order to cope with different options to operationalize the sustainability concept and in order to make the implicit normative assumptions explicit. Moreover, neither MAUT nor the other assessment tools have the strength of the newly developed indicator systems for sustainable development. Although indicator systems certainly do have their weaknesses on their own, they also represent a type of knowledge integration and they become more and more established. In addition, there are economic tools such as cost‐benefit analysis, willingness to pay, etc. Hence, the appropriate assessment tool must be selected, and students within the domain of sustainability should also learn to handle the different options available.

Secondly, viewed from a more social science point of view, some important tools for actor analysis are lacking within the setting. There are many ingredients (such as the agents mind maps, attitudes, expectations, etc.), which researchers or students may use for an actor analysis, but some important methods are missing. Imagine a democratically legitimized group searching for a balancing of interests on a specific topic. Although democracy cannot prevent decision‐making biases based on stakeholder interests, the agents do have more or less well‐defined means such as pressure, public opinion, etc. in order to search for optimized proposals. Democracy has demonstrated to be relatively successful in weighting interests. Now imagine a stakeholder group as part of a case study team. The challenge within this setting is whether the agents will necessarily act the same way within such a case study situation as they would within a real decision making situation. Yes, it may be the case. But, based on what is known as attitude‐acting‐gap, actors within a case study team may abstract from their normal institutional surroundings, i.e. from their normal institutional restrictions. They may act unrealistically. Accordingly, it may be potentially misleading for students to claim that such transdisciplinary case studies (projects) allow per se minimising interest biases by its very setting.

The social sciences know a number of instruments such as qualitative interviews, discourse analysis or structural analysis of social interactions to cope with the sketched potential gap. How they can become integrated in the setting is an open question. Renn (2002) points to other tools from the social sciences to become potentially integrated in modelling and in scenario technique as well. He mentions the consideration of social reaction patterns, the back‐casting variation of scenarios, the analysis of organisational structures and research on participation and governance. Again, I have to concede that we still have to consider on how to integrate these tools from the social science into the specific teaching setting of an embedded case study.

Notwithstanding the sketched problems, Scholz and Tietje gave the scientific community interested in teaching sustainability together with a transdisciplinary approach an important, powerful tool for project courses. Are there any alternatives on the market? Imagine you get the task and the money to accompany a local agenda 21‐process scientifically. You intend to involve your students. What options do you have? Your students will be in need to model the system in question. They will probably not develop scenarios because the local people engaged in the LA21 will already have them constructed. However, they will look for assessment tools in order to evaluate the scenarios. They will also cooperate with the local people. It may be the case that the management setting will be different from the one preferred by Scholz and Tietje. But most of the tools presented within the book are quite appropriate even in what seems to be quite a different situation.

In other words: there are no real substantial alternatives on the market. Given the goals I mentioned at the beginning, the book represents the state of the art. I take it to be a challenge, however, how the tool, especially the scenario analysis, can become adapted to or enriched by tools from the social sciences and hope that colleagues from theses disciplines will also pick up that challenge.