Reconsidering the Utility of Case Study Designs for Researching School Reform in a Neo-Scientific Era: Insights From a Multiyear, Mixed-Methods Study

Abstract

In recent years, policy makers and researchers once again have embraced the traditional idea that quasi-experimental research designs (or reasonable facsimiles) can provide the sort of valid and generalizable knowledge about “what works” that educational researchers had promised—but never really produced—during the previous century. Although critics have challenged this thinking, to date most critiques have been more epistemological than methodological.The purpose of this article is to critique neo-scientific thinking about case study methods. In the process of doing this, the article also provides a more general, methodologically oriented critique of neo-scientific thought. The authors use a mixed-method, multiyear study of a reform initiative to keep their discussion tethered to relatively concrete methodological concerns.