Reviewing the Epistemologies of the Educational, Architectural and Interdisciplinary Case Study Models for Educational Facilities

(COPYRIGHT © 2010 MIKAEL POWELL. All Rights Reserved)
A case study is a systematic way of doing research that exemplifies one incident or process. Many disciplines use case studies to further their understanding of a particular item or occurrence and the format and methods employed vary from study to study and across fields of inquiry. Stake (1997) reminds us “people have different notions as to what a case study is…It belongs to science and to social service” (pp. 401-402) and indeed to many other discourses.

The interdisciplinarity of my scholastic program and my background heightens my interest in case study methods as ways of conducting research. I intend to study the make-up of case studies to examine their use in the fields of education and architecture and discover how they are shaped by their corresponding epistemologies. Likewise, Filemyr (1999), a noted researcher of interdisciplinary studies, approaches “ knowledge from a perspective which incorporates, ..the social sciences and natural sciences…not simply to add multiple perspectives but to create a more cohesive framework from which to effectively engage in authentic inquiry”( p.8).

Therefore, I am not concerned with creating a discipline-accepted architecture case study or a case study in line with the education discourse, or one that blends formats, but rather to understand the foundation of case studies within the discourse of their disciplines.

Although case studies have a scope that can employ a positivist, phenomenological or mixed approach, the audience for case studies and the discourse it functions within have a definite preference.

The Environmental-Behavioralist Model has a distinct positivist foundation. Many of the tenets for the Social Science Model are interpretive. Movement between models for interdisciplinary fields can result in a case study approach unmoored to any discipline and potentially deemed inadequate by both.

The Educational case study falls short in regard to meeting the needs of the architect or the environmental behaviorist. Very little is mentioned about the collaboration between design professionals, builders, local authorities, and the school administration. Infrastructure and building systems are seldom highlighted. However, upon further inspection, the shortcomings are not only those of substance or shared values, but the educational case study is not constructed of a philosophy that seeks a computational answer in the form of quantitative data. The architectural model for academics is one moving toward positivism in its quest for legitimacy. Certainly, the evidence –based design movement embodies that initiative.

Lastly, within the epistemology of the architectural practitioner model, the hermeneutics of case study research is challenged. In these case studies, building product advertisers are highlighted, thus it is unlikely that unsuccessful systems would be illustrated. In addition, there is a high commercial aspect to the case study. Architects, contractors, school officials inevitably want to be shown in good light. Certainly, nothing which would fuel a lawsuit between any of the constituents involved would be published in the case study.

Conducting case study research begins with the examination of philosophical approach.