Un estudio de un caso es un estudio en profundidad de un problema, situación, persona o grupo de personas concreto. Un estudio de un caso refleja una situación real o hipotética (pero que podría ser real) y con una complejidad adecuada.
Una definición de case study:
A case study is defined as an in-depth examination of a specific unit of analysis, such as organizations, individuals, or events, to gather qualitative or quantitative data through various methods like interviews, questionnaires, and observations.
Un buen estudio de caso debe poseer las siguientes características:
- It is taken from real life (true identities may be concealed).
- It consists of many parts and each part usually ends with problems and points for discussion. There may not be a clear cut off point to the situation.
- It includes sufficient information for the reader to treat problems and issues.
- It is believable for the reader (the case contains the setting, personalities, sequence of events, problems and conflicts).
Kardos, G. & Smith, C.O. (1979) On Writing Engineering Cases. Proceedings of ASEE National Conference on Engineering Case Studies.
Existe el concepto single-case study:
A single case study is defined as a research method that involves detailed examination of an individual case to monitor and control therapeutic work, aiming to demonstrate treatment integrity and efficacy in fields like psychotherapy.
Estudio de un caso
Writing a case study
What is a Case Study?
Writing case studies in information systems research
Ejemplos de estudios de un caso
Case study: Using Smart Cards with PKI to implement data access control for health information systems
Cita: J. Watts, Huiming Yu, Xiaohong Yuan. Proceedings of the IEEE SoutheastCon 2010 (SoutheastCon), pp. 163,167, 18-21 March 2010.
Mapping study completeness and reliability - a case study
Cita: B. Kitchenham, P. Brereton, D. Budgen. 16th International Conference on Evaluation & Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE 2012), pp. 126,135, 14-15 May 2012.
Case studies in computing education: Presentation, evaluation and assessment of four case study-based course design and delivery models
Cita: I. Baumgartner, V. Shankararaman. 2014 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), pp. 1,8, 22-25 Oct. 2014.