Abstract:

Case teaching method is well known and widely used in several disciplines. Students that are more inductive than deductive in their learning style could have an advantage of using case studies to increase learning outcome. Several studies exist about the application and usage of case studies for educational purposes. However, little is known about the usage of “extensive”-case studies. “Extensive”-case studies are defined in our study as case studies, which incorporate several disciplines and information that is heavily reliant on existing prior knowledge. The authors discuss the application based on the theory of cognitive load and investigate “extensive”-case teaching by means of a longitudinal case study according to Yin.

A case is written which is on the one hand heavily depend on prior knowledge (students (final term) who studied a multidisciplinary program (areas: management, information systems, communication) and on the other hand is designed to overwhelm the students with lots of information consisting of tasks from all areas of their program. Hence, the cognitive load is considerably high-the students ought to structure the input in elements and organize the tasks in packages they are capable to comprehend.

Taken together the first findings of this pre-study, it indicates that “extensive”-case teaching application allows an interdisciplinary program to assess the overall learning outcome and to provide a possible final integrative synopsis to rationalise the learning outcome for students.

Keywords:

Case teaching, Cognitive Load Theory, Case Study Research.