What is a Transdisciplinary Case Study?
A transdisciplinary case study is a capacity building format and can be used in teaching or for own learning purposes. Developed from real-world cases, transdisciplinary case studies provide practice-oriented knowledge to teach fundamentals, principles, and the design of transdisciplinary research to those interested in learning about the research mode. The aim of the case studies is to strengthen competencies of transdisciplinary researchers and raise awareness of challenges that can arise during transdisciplinary research by means of completed transdisciplinary research projects from different geographic, socio-economic, and disciplinary contexts.
Structure and application of a Transdisciplinary Case Study
The structure and objective of the case studies are based on Harvard Business Case Studies, which are used at Harvard Business School as an integral part of the Master's program in Business Administration (Hsu 2016). In these, students are given the task to collaboratively analyze and discuss real business cases. Instead of business cases, transdisciplinary case studies focus on societally relevant and locally specific challenges that have been addressed in respective transdisciplinary projects. They have been applied in various formats for teaching in higher education institutions such as ETH Zürich or Leuphana Univeristy Lüneburg (Burandt et al. 2003; Stauffacher & Scholz 2012).
Each of our transdisciplinary case studies consists of a case description, presentation slides, and a teaching manual to guide participants and teachers through the case study. They vary in topic, lengths, and complexity; thus, they can be applied in different teaching formats (e.g., online course, summer school, etc.). With the help of storytelling elements, pictures and graphics, the case description is designed to make the case tangible and relatable. The presentation slides include tasks and additional literature. In addition, instructors can find helpful preparation tips and an exemplary timeline for successful case study implementation in the teaching guide. Uploaded as docs and pdf documents, they can be adapted to various application formats.
All case studies are offered as free learning materials and are not allowed to be used for commercial purposes.
References
Burandt, S., Döscher, K., Fuisz, S.-K., Helgenberger, S., & Maly, L. (2003). Transdisziplinäre Fallstudien in Lüneburg. ETH Zürich und Universität Lüneburg. Retrieved from http://www.uni-lueneburg.de/csm/
Hsu, W. (2016). Harvard Business School (HBS) Case Method to Teaching English for Business Communication. Education and Linguistics Research, 2(2). Education and Linguistics Research 2(2). doi: 10.5296/elr.v2i2.10192
Stauffacher, M., & Scholz, R. W. (2012). Transdisziplinäre Lehrforschung am Beispiel der Fallstudien der ETH Zürich. In M. Dusseldorp & R. Beecroft (Eds.), Technikfolgen abschätzen lehren (pp. 223-239). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. doi: 10.1007/978-3-531-93468-6_15
