ecch promotes and funds research into the case method of learning. The case method has many strong and enthusiastic proponents but little rigorous academic research exists to verify why it is so effective.
What drives case sales?
Issue 42 of ecch's ECCHO magazine included the feature What makes a case popular? It explored the research project carried out by ecch Executive Committee member Stuart Read of IMD on what attributes of the cases in the ecch collection historically correlate with sales. Stuart has kindly agreed to share the preliminary presentation of the results with you here. We intend to continue exploring this issue further into next year. If you have any contributions to add to this debate, please contact Hayley Goldsmith at
h.goldsmith@ecch.com.
Learning from the Case Method
John Burgoyne and Alan Mumford
Department of Management Learning, Lancaster University Management School
The project compared and contrasted the learning process and outcomes in the use of the case method as proposed in the literature, as designed and experienced by case teachers, and as experienced by learners. The aim of the project was to infer which theoretical perspectives make most sense of the application of the case method, and to suggest how applications might be improved.
The Use of the Case Method in Large and Diverse Undergraduate Business Programmes: Problems and Issues
Charles Booth, Stuart Bowie, Judith Jordan & Ann Rippin
Bristol Business School, University of the West of England
The study investigated the implications of "massification" for the design, delivery and management of undergraduate business education programmes, and the use of the case method in this context. It investigated students' experience as well as the teaching practice, with a European rather than a solely UK focus.
Expert and Novice Differences in Case Analysis
Geoff Easton and Tom Ormerod
Departments of Marketing and Psychology, Lancaster University
An investigation in depth of the experiences of students learning from cases, particularly in relation to the acquisition of problem-solving skills. This was achieved, using a technique widely used in cognitive psychology to measure student performance indirectly, by comparing the behaviour of novices to experts during the case analysis process.
