issues of the REVIEW OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH of the use of the case study in research methodology, progress has been made in this field. First, the case study has been of increased value to students of research in education, psychology, sociology, and anthropology; second, progress has been made in the technics of gathering and treating case study data for research purposes; and third, case material has been employed in many significant investigations.
The Acknowledged Value of the Case Study as Research MethodWhereas a few years ago the case study was often looked upon with suspicion as a method of research and whereas methods of gathering data by group processes that better lent themselves to statistical handling were favored more, the literature of the last three years has stressed the use of case material at least as a complementary and sometimes as a superior research methodology. Thus Hill and Ackiss (29) called the case method "a basically sound approach" to sociological research and held that "this methodology, moreover, bridges the gap between the stereotyped, factual community survey, and the personality-culture community study." Miles (44) referred to it as "one of the most important research methods of sociology." Cantor (11) and Lonsdale (40: 647) pointed out its value in social work research with the latter reporting that one private social agency, recognizing its worth, has engaged John Dollard to prepare "a design for research in case-record material." Riemer (45: 194) wrote that in criminological research to get at the units of causation "we shall have to direct our attention more eagerly to the study of the individual case." Young (60) while recognizing that "without quantification there can be no science" asserted that "with adequate concepts, careful observation of well-drawn small samples and the use of logical analysis some very substantial generalizations may be derived." Angell (2: 214-215) stated that in orthopsychiatric research "for real scientific work ... a great deal of what has gone under the name of case study is prerequisite," but he adds the following significant comment: "The grave danger in working exhaustively with a few cases in order to obtain good analytical 'hunches' is that the investigator will become so involved in analytical speculation that he will never frame definite hypotheses, or that if he does reach this stage he will never subject them to the empirical test. Just as many statis-
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