In this article…
Introduction
This article is an expansion of one I wrote for the Bee Digital marketing website. It was originally aimed at businesses, but I’ve added a section for schools. The first part of the business-oriented section will still be of interest though, as it lists different kinds of case studies. Indeed, if you mentally take out the references to buyers and sellers, the business section contains information that should prove useful to Computing heads of department and subject leaders, and education technology leaders and co-ordinators.
Case studies for business
It’s all very well writing about the features and benefits of your product, but how do potential buyers know what it would be like to use in practice? You may argue that you offer users a free trial. However, depending on your product or service, that may be of limited use to a school. After all, if the product involves the whole of year 7, implementing the solution and then un-implementing it are both major undertakings.
That is where a case study comes in. The purpose of a case study is, in effect, to say to potential buyers, “Look, this is what our product is like in practice.”
What we should add here is the phrase, “…in a school like yours.” This is what is technically known as “ecological validity”. If, for example, your case study involves a school with ten pupils per class, then any teacher with thirty pupils per class will deem it irrelevant to their needs. For this reason, you should really have a range of case studies pertaining to different scenarios, to make it as easy as possible for someone to identify a school that resembles their own.
So what kind of case studies might you have? There are several types such as:
Academic.
Observed.
Interviews.
Data.
In practice, many case studies will involve elements of all of these but let’s look at them separately.
Academic
If you would like your product to be evaluated in a manner that looks objective and scientific then you could team up with a university or college department and work with them to have your product put through its paces as a research project. The main advantage of this is that it will be, or at least appear to be, more objective than if you did it all in-house. Moreover, you should end up with some useful comparisons such as the benefits to a school using your product compared to one not using it, or a before and after comparison.
Observed
This is where someone visits a school or class where your product is being used and takes notes about what they see going on. For example, are the kids engaged, does the teacher have more information about each pupil at her fingertips, and so on.
Interviews
A more interesting version of the simply observed case study is one in which parents, teachers and, of course, pupils are interviewed to find out what they like and dislike about the product (that is, how they think it could be improved). You won’t want to include the dislikes in the published case study, of course, but the information would no doubt prove useful for discussing improvements.
Data
This type of case study involves analysing data and would not necessarily involve setting foot in the school. The idea is to see how your product affected key performance indicators. For example, has punctuality improved since the product was put in place? Has absenteeism declined?
Clearly, all or most of these elements could be included in any case study, so it’s really a question of emphasis, and time.
Further considerations
Finally, will the case study be a stand-alone document or part of a larger whole? Stand-alone case studies are very useful from the point of view that they could all be available on your website. Potential buyers should be able to find one that sounds relevant to their needs, such as “Inner City comprehensive, 1500 on roll, 29% FSM etc”.
Alternatively, you might include short case studies, or vignettes, as part of a longer document such as a product brochure or white paper. This is the sort of thing the Department for Education does. For example, in a document about assessment, there will be “box-outs” or special pages with text like “Fred Bloggs Academy decided to introduce coloured badges in Year7…”. The main advantages of this approach are that your product will be placed in a wider context, with several case studies highlighting different aspects of the product and how it is being used. The disadvantage, of course, is that each case study will have to be quite short, and little more than a snapshot if the document is not to take on War and Peace proportions.
Case studies for Computing or education technology
Could it be worth compiling case studies of success stories of people who have used education technology or completed a Computing course in your school? Of course! The would-be inspirational posters teachers put up tend to be of role models who, from students’ perspective, have nothing to do with them. Much better, in my opinion, to feature case studies of students or ex-students , or even members of staff, who have achieved success with education technology or from studying Computing (with their permission, of course).
The purpose of such case studies would be to convey to students considering their options that that person is similar to me, and if they can succeed in this subject perhaps I can too. (That would work especially well if you put up some case studies of recent ex-pupils who have gone on to a great job of further or higher education as a result (or partly a result) of their having studied your subject. Remember: if the event is recent enough many current students will know the person who is the subject of the case study.)
Presumably, a similar consideration applies to staff — a variation of “If I can do it, anyone can”. However, I preferred the more writerly “show, don’t tell” approach, by which teachers would notice that some of their erstwhile techphobic colleagues were using the computer facilities, and doing so with enthusiasm.
History lesson, by Terry Freedman
So what kind of things might make a decent case study? To take just a few examples:
An autistic boy in Year 5 (9/10 year-old) who never spoke became the go-to person in the year group for video editing advice as a result of a large-scale multimedia project.
A techphobic history teacher was able to make a particular unit of work come alive by using a computer application.
A year 8 ((12/13 year-old) girl set up and ran her own website, and was able to help a teacher set up his department’s website.
Such case studies don’t have to be in-depth. They can be little more than anecdotes. But what they lack in length is more than made up for by their genuineness and lack of remoteness.
Concluding remarks
If businesses can use case studies to sell their products and services, why can’t heads of Computing or education technology leaders or co-ordinators “sell” their options or facilities?
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