Case Study
An in-depth investigation of one bounded instance, such as a person, organization, program, or event, in its real-life context.
A case study examines a single case, or a small set of cases, in depth and in context, typically combining sources such as interviews, documents, and observation. Cases are chosen deliberately because they are typical, extreme, revealing, or otherwise informative. The approach trades breadth for depth: it explains how and why something happens in a particular setting rather than how often it happens in general.
For a thesis, a case study demands a clearly bounded case, an explicit rationale for selecting it, and honesty about generalizability. Rather than statistical generalization, argue for analytical generalization: what the case teaches about theory or transferable mechanisms. Rich description plus a transparent chain of evidence is what convinces examiners that the depth was worth the narrow scope.
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