At this point in the class, you have already done at least three things which prepare you for this final part:

1) You have defined Economic Geography early on and presumably have revised that definition since then. In addition, you have been exposed to comprehensive frameworks both in Healey and Ilbery as well as in class. Thus, you have a pretty good idea what, in general, we are after, and what kinds of questions fall within the realm of this discipline.

2) You have developed your own concentration. There is life and work after you posted your contribution to the collaborative New-Course Application! The work on your Concentration should have whetted your appetite and prepared you for some more specific follow-up. For the next and final segment you have a few options, not to make your life more difficult, but to adjust your research (within the parameters of your present group) as much as possible to your true interests and vocation.

3) You were asked to calculate at least one "Location Quotient" which gave you an opportunity to get some very initial "feel" for the context within which you either have already or will now develop a question or two and which in turn will lead you to your "case study". This location quotient does not answer these questions, but only prepare them! (or better prepare you to ask questions after some additional deductive thought and inductive familiarization with the subject area).

These exercises and earlier project segements were explicitly designed to prepare you for this final part. They were supposed to link the much broader "Economic Geography" to the much narrower "case study" you are now aiming for.

See a message from 207/1996 which might clarify the objectives of the Case Study a bit more.

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Now you need to make three interrelated decisions related to

1. the nature of the project;
2. the form of presentation; and, most importantly,
3. the "case" itself, i.e. the topic of your case study

[The first two options are illustrated in this table; examples for case study topics can be found here.]

1. Are you more interested in following up your Concentration work with

• traditional student research, i.e. conducting a case study in search of "explanation" in response to some research question or "hypothesis"; or with
• the development of a more practical
  • Business Plan
  • Plan to become a "Geographic Consultant"
  • Career or Employment Plan
  • Plan for a future Internship or Service-Learning Experience
  • Background Research for a Concurrent Internship or Service Learning Experience
  • Plan for some other relevant Volunteer or "Independent Sector" Experience?

2. How do you want to write-up and present the findings of your investigation as part of your group presentation at the end of the quarter? You have a few choices of media which permit you to combine your creative talents, your illustrative, digital and verbal skills with your newly gained competence as an up-and-coming Economic Geographer: Use of

• your integrated Web site involving the combination of writing (up your research findings) and the creative use of internal and external hypertextual resource links; graphics are permitted and encouraged but not required; Illustrations could potentially be presented separately in hard-copy (see next two options)
• a Poster (the creative combination of words and illustrations on a cardboard, accompanied by a digital (Web site) or "paper" report)
• a Portfolio of case-study related materials (accompanied by an interpretive research report (on Web page or "paper") or
• a self-made Video tape (with a script).

All will involve some writing (at least approx. 1,500 words or 5 conventional pages).

3. As part of your concentration you already have developed some questions. Now you need to select one of these questions, explore the extent to which it already may have been answered in the literature, and then propose the case study which you want to undertake to contribute to an answer. For example, you want to find out whether urban homelessness is based on local poverty and displacement or is the result of inmigration of the homeless. Your case study might deal only with Seattle and families with children. Or you know you want to start your own business after graduation and have already developed a long list of geographically important questions to explore as part of your business plan. Now you apply your business plan ideas to a particular type of activity. You have represented "urban transportation" in your "transportation group" and now want to test the idea that telecommuting might provide a partial solution to the congestion problem in cities (such as Seattle) with a particular employment structure.

What is important is that WE DO NOT WANT TO START A CASE STUDY WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT THE "CASE" IN THE CASE STUDY REPRESENTS. Your work on your "concentration" should have done that; if it has not, you may have to back up.

CAUTION: In addition to many advantages, Case Studies unfortunately also tend to have some limitations which we want to keep in mind, namely
(1) They often lure investigators into so much interesting factual detail that they forget the "case", i.e. the purpose of the study. While we are all deeply interested in our concentrations within which we pursue our case study, and always wanted to know everything there is to know about this area, we do want remember that we have a focus (a focal question) and that the quarter will be over soon!
(2) The second limitation of any case study is that your question is explored only on the basis of one "case", i.e. what you find in your particular context may not be representative for the larger set of cases which could also be used (but are not) to test your question. Case studies seldom prove anything, but they usually provide good clues and insights useful for further analysis. Thus, while you cannot definitively answer your question, you can contribute to the answer by helping to reformulate, refocus and "fine-tune" the question. This is the reason why it is important that you find out a bit about (a) earlier studies and (b) how much others may already have addressed, answered or reformulated your question.

Let us also not forget that while, from an explanatory point of view, one "case" does not represent the total population, the "real world" out there does consist of "cases" which you have to face after leaving this academic program. Let us also not forget that one of the foremost MBA programs, namely that at the Harvard Business School pioneered and still emphasizes the case method in its curriculum.

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Student Research: Steps, Stages and Phases

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