Background
In partial fulfillment of the Scholarly Delivery requirement in the WTAMU Ed.D. program in Educational Leadership, under the guidance and direction of their scholarly delivery committees, doctoral candidates must create their own teaching case study article that culminates in a publish-worthy manuscript formatted for submission to the Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership (JCEL). The University Council for Education Administration (UCEA) sponsors the JCEL in an ongoing effort to improve administrative preparation. This journal is a Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) member.
Case Study Review Criteria
Ambiguity
A good teaching case is full of ambiguity. The central problem of a case should not be apparent or easy to identify. On the contrary, there may be a multitude of problems, with some being more important than others. Case discussants should be presented with enough ambiguity that it is not apparent how a problem should be solved or even what the central problem really is. A case teacher will know that a classroom discussion of a case was successful when students present conflicting solutions to a case’s central problem or disagree in their identification of the case’s core issues.
Complexity
Good teaching cases are complex. Some case studies are written where the problem presented is simple, or the case characters are so stereotypical that there is little to analyze or discuss. Complexity has become a major feature of contemporary educational leadership practice and effective leaders learn to respond to this complexity by using multiple perspectives, understanding ambiguity, and thinking in more fluid, rather than static ways.
Context
All cases describe a unique setting—typically a school, a university, or a workplace. A good case provides the reader with rich contextual details, including information about the organizational setting, the characters, and the community or relevant larger environment. Other contextual details may be important as well, such as the legal climate, political themes, cultural norms, and historical information, for example.
Relevance
A good teaching case presents a significant current problem with broad implications that applies to the case discussants. Therefore, authors should make sure that the topic that they choose to write a case study about has not been excessively addressed in the recent past.
Additional information can be found in the full case study documentation.