Abstract
The use of case studies in some higher education programmes has been well established since the 1950s, particularly in those related to management and the health sciences. In the humanities, however, though the case study is an essential form of scientific inquiry, its introduction in the classroom is not as frequent. Moreover, the standard pedagogical use of the case study usually consists of the presentation of a case, in order to encourage creative thinking and develop solution-seeking strategies to an already concluded description of a real or hypothetical scenario. This paper discusses the potential benefits of asking higher education students to write their own case studies, a practice introduced in 2020 in the course units of French/German/Spanish Culture for Business II, of the MA in Intercultural Studies for Business lectured at ISCAP (Porto Polytechnic). Because of its emphasis on interpretation, case study writing may help students develop their skills in data collection and analysis, powers of observation, and critical thinking. In addition, due to the characteristics of this text type, skills in storytelling and creative writing may also be enhanced. After reviewing the pertinent literature on the subject, the authors illustrate some of the advantages of this teaching method by going through some actual examples of short case studies written by their students and already published.
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Tallone, L., Pascoal, S., Furtado, M. (2023). Asking Higher Education Students to Write Research Case Studies—A Way to Develop Engagement and Critical Thinking. In: Mesquita, A., Abreu, A., Carvalho, J.V., Santana, C., de Mello, C.H.P. (eds) Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology. ICITED 2023. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 366. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_15
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