Case studies in business education: an investigation of a learner-friendly approach

Purpose Case studies are widely used in business education as an action-oriented teaching method to develop students’ problem-solving skills. While they are popular in the classroom, the authors know little about how best to design and use case studies and whether they improve students’ learning experience and outcomes. This paper aims to investigate whether pedagogically developed case studies lead to better student learning outcomes than do traditional case studies. Design/methodology/approach This large-scale, international quantitative research surveyed students ( N = 159) at four major faculties of business and economics in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland to determine whether integrating pedagogical principles into the design phase of teaching cases and adhering to pedagogical principles in case study design affected students’ learning outcomes. Findings This study finds that pedagogically developed case studies have a more positive impact on student learning compared to traditional case studies. In addition, the authors found that students who have had previous experience with case-study work and who have positive perceptions of it had even better learning outcomes compared to students who have had no previous experience with case-study work and have negative perceptions of it. Originality/value Anecdotal accounts of using case studies in business education suggest that they have a positive impact on the teaching-learning process and learning outcomes, yet very few studies have surveyed students themselves to evaluate whether case-study teaching and learning does in fact lead to better learning outcomes. By empirically showing that teaching with pedagogically developed case studies leads to better learning outcomes, the study suggests that developing case studies using these methods can improve student learning. In addition, the study suggests that students with no prior experience with case studies or with negative prior experiences may need greater preparation and support to fully benefit from case-study work.