Abstract:

This paper focuses on the issue of ‘case selection’ when doing research on the digitalization of education. Besides addressing the rationale behind some theoretical aspects of case selection, the main purpose is to show how it can be done in practice. More precisely, the performed case selection is based on a set of qualitative-quantitative criteria together with some practical considerations of the chosen case. A critical review of literature on case selection in case study research shows that even though it has been widely used by researchers across disciplines, few papers deal with the issue of case selection in practice. To fill this gap in the literature on educational technology in school setting, we describe in detail how we have decided to choose a ‘typical single case’ for the digitalization of schools.

We conclude that a systematic and transparent case selection process contributes to both rigor and relevance of the preceding research in terms of:
(i) Giving a rich and detailed picture of the characteristics of the chosen case,
(ii) Providing an overview in terms of variation in the entire population of cases – i.e. what distinguishes the chosen case from the cases not chosen.,
(iii) Constituting a good foundation for further research in terms of guiding a stratified selection of cases for a future large scale survey, and most importantly
(iv) Justifying a solid discussion of the generalizability and the transferability of the findings discovered in the study conducted in the selected case.

Keywords:

Case Selection, Digitalization, Management.