Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ROBERT K. YIN
INTRODUCTION
The assignment for this article was to emulate the TRACES section of a journal issue
in the 21st century-to predict today’s excerpts that might be cited by future evaluators
as making a mark on the profession of evaluation. To identify such traces of case study
research-to be uncovered and cherished by evaluators in the 21 st century-is like a theme
from the movie trilogy, &dquo;Back to the Future.&dquo; The challenge combines introspection (in
fact, once an accepted methodology in experimental psychology) and soothsaying (not
ever a methodology, to this writer’s knowledge). Ironically, the ultimate validation test
would be a re-reading of this article in the 21st century, but the article is not a guaranteed
part of the future, either.
A key perspective for this exercise is an appreciation of past case study research. After
a reminder about the past, I present three scenarios of the future and then really get into
crystal gazing by naming several works that might be part of a 21st century evaluator’s
&dquo;bookshelf&dquo; (a quaint colloquialism by the 21st century because all bookshelves will have
been replaced by portable, multi-media, and transparent electronic files).
The premise on which all else follows is that future evaluators will indeed look back to
and cite the case study method in the first place. That such a premise might surprisingly
be invalid is supported by the checkered history of the ideas about the case study method,
traced authoritatively by Jennifer Platt (1992).
Doing a simple reference count, Platt found that the bulk of the textbooks on research
methods (18 out of 30)-published from 1970 to 1979-failed to mention case studies at
all. This absence was found despite the fact that case studies had been mentioned by nearly
Robert K. Yin, President, COSMOS Corporation, 7475 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814.
283
284
all textbooks in earlier decades (29 out of 31). However, although most of the references
in the 1920s and 1930s presented the case study as a full-fledged and important research
tool, Platt notes that; even by the 1950s the discussions were &dquo;...almost entirely confined
to elementary textbooks&dquo; and not presented as &dquo;a focus of professional interest.&dquo; She then
found that texts in the 1960s gave case studies perfunctory attention only, with the
&dquo;orthodoxy&dquo; being to:
&dquo;...treat case studies not as a distinct method but merely as an optional part of
&dquo;
FUTURE SCENARIO I:
LOOKING BACK AND NOT SEEING A CASE STUDY METHOD
This first scenario indeed assumes that future evaluators will focus not on the case study
method, but on specific methodological techniques that are increasingly appearing in
today’s case study research. These techniques already are found in other forms of (non-
case study) research, so their complete assimilation by all types of research, including
quantitative and experimental methods, would not be surprising. As a result, the techniques
285
will be highly valued, but they will not be considered attributes of the case study method
alone. To this extent, the case study as a singular method will not necessarily have survived
into the future. The future of case study research would in this sense be a repeat of its
past, as traced by Platt.
At least seven such techniques can be identified now: .
Doing good case study evaluation requires these techniques (Yin, 1993a, 1994a). Their
usefulness, however, is potentially so great that all evaluation methods might eventually
incorporate them. Future Scenario I therefore conjectures that the most referenced future
works will be those displaying and practicing these techniques, not necessarily limited to
the case study method.
Of the seven, possibly the one with the greatest impact but that requires much further
development is the substitution of explicit rival hypotheses for the use of control or
comparison groups. In contemporary program interventions, such control or comparison
groups are becoming increasingly difficult, especially when the unit of analysis is an
organization (or a program) and not an individual client. Evaluators are not likely.to have
the control necessary to manipulate another organization (or program); the costs of having
such control or comparison groups are likely to be excessive; and the closeness of fit of finding
a suitable control or comparison group for an organization or program that is virtually
unique-by dint of its: distinctive mission; geographic location and demographic profile; age,
history, and peculiar internal structure; and contextual setting-is extremely low.
These circumstances are gradually forcing evaluators into a new way of thinking (Yin,
1993b). To start, recall the original importance of control or comparison groups: to rule
out rival explanations, but by inference. Thus, the virtue of having control or comparison
groups has been the luxury of ruling out rivals without necessarily identifying them.
However, the possibility now exists that, where control or’ comparison groups are
infeasible, rigorous designs still can be developed if evaluators would specify the key rivals
ahead of time. The more that these rivals can be specified, the more that they can be
investigated directly-by tracking the existence of alternative sequences of events with the
intervention group, but not requiring the use of control or comparison groups.
The second scenario contrasts directly with the first: Future evaluators will focus
specifically on the evaluations of today that are using the case study method. What might
286
these evaluations be? Unf~rtunately, none of them has been completed as of this writing.
emergence of some classic case study evaluations from this pool of interventions.
287
How to choose among these three scenarios is difficult. If no drastic changes in current
trends occur, the odds favor Future Scenario II. However, if no, stellar case study research
is completed soon, either Future Scenarios I or III will then prevail. On the assumption
that II is the choice, several works would seem to be high on a short list of &dquo;must&dquo; reading.
First, Donald Campbell’s &dquo;’Degrees of Freedom’ and the Case Study&dquo; (1975) will be
read and re-read. As with nearly all his writing, the concepts and ideas are so rich that
re-reading will be a continued source of inspiration for new research practices. Remember
that this provocative article starts with the observation that,
Moreover, the institution and its publications are likely to persist for a long time, and
GAO’s influence over public policy evaluations is likely to increase with time. The existence
of a &dquo;transfer&dquo; series paper on case study evaluations will therefore continue to draw
readers, out of curiosity if nothing else.
Third, multiple case study research, not the classic single case study, will be the
dominant substantive works. In retrospect, Graham Allison’s Essence of Decision (1971)
might be the last of the great single case studies. The historical context of this book,
however, will become so outdated that it will finally cease being cited in such popular
fashion as today (imagine how students in the 2lst century are likely to think of the Soviet
Union-much as we today might regard Kuomintang China and a person named Chiang
Kai-Shek). The multiple cases might be as small as two-for example, the microelectronics
and aeronautics industries in Hooks (1990)-or contain larger numbers of cases.
Fourth, renewed attention will be given to the way that narratives are composed in
science, how narratives embed scientific argument, and therefore how narratives implicitly
embed research designs (especially cross-experiment or cross-case designs). Scholars of
the 21st century will desperately search for works on this topic, but be largely frustrated.
They will therefore rediscover an extremely important work in ethnographic (not case
study) writing, John Van Maanen’s Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography (1988).
His book identifies several different types of tales: realist tales, confessional tales,
impressionist tales, critical tales, formal tales, literary tales, and jointly told tales. Although
Van Maanen’s typology is meant for ethnography, his work is included in a case study
list because his notion of a typology of narrative forms will be invaluable for the
development of a parallel typology for case study research.
The nomination of these four works concludes this discovery of the future. Not included
in the three scenarios or the nominated works are ideas about formalizing a case study
profession-for example, by suggesting the emergence of a case study journal, a degree
in doing case study research, or cross-national sharing of study opportunities and data.
These would be an alternative way of thinking about the evolution of a profession. However,
the goal has been to focus on the substantive issues, and not necessarily a profession.
Remember, too, that the four works are not nominations for being put into a time
capsule, to be opened in the 21st century. Rather, the exercise has been to prognosticate
what evaluators in the 21st century will of their own accord find important in our current
works. The reverse logic is like projecting not what Alice saw in Wonderland when she
looked into the looking glass, but what the characters of Wonderland each thought when
they first encountered Alice. One can only wish the best of luck to the evaluation
wonderland of the 21st century. ,
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to thank Jennifer Platt and John Van Maanen for reviewing an
earlier version of this article.
REFERENCES
Allison, G. T. (1971). Essence of decision: Explaining the Cuban missile crisis. Little, Brown, Boston,
MA.
290
Campbell, D. T. (1975). Degrees of freedom and the case study. Comparative Political Studies, 8,
178-193.
Campbell, D. T., & Stanley, J. (1966). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for research.
Rand McNally, Chicago, IL.
Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (1979). Quasi-experimentation: Design and analysis issues for field
settings. Rand McNally, Chicago, IL.
Datta, L.-E. (1994). Paradigm wars: A basis for peaceful coexistence and beyond. New Directions
for Program Evaluation, 61, 53-70.
Hooks, G. (1990). The rise of the Pentagon and U.S. State Building: The defense program as
industrial policy. American Journal of Sociology, 96,358-404.
Platt, J. (1992). ’Case study’ in American methodological thought. Current Sociology, 40, 17-48.
Reichardt, C. S., & Rallis S. F. (Eds.). (1994). The qualitative-quantitative debate: New perspectives.
New Directions for Program Evaluation, 61.
Evaluation: A systematic approach. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Rossi, P. H., & Freeman, H. E. (1993).
Sage Publications.
Shaw, C. R. (1930). Thejack roller. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
U.S. General Accounting Office. (1990). Program evaluation and methodology division: Case study
evaluations. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.
Van Maanen, J. (1988). Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press.
Yin, R. K. (1993a). Applications of case study research. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Yin, R. K. (1993b). New methods for evaluating programs in NSF’s Division of Research,
Evaluation, and Dissemination. Unpublished paper, COSMOS Corporation, Washington,
D.C.
Yin, R. K. (1994a). Case study research: Design and methods (2nd ed., 1st ed., 1984; rev. ed., 1989).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Yin, R. K. (1994b). Evaluation: A singular craft. New Directions for Program Evaluation, 61, 71-
84.