Teaching · For Teachers

Back every claim with more than one kind of evidence.

Log each document, interview and observation against a proposition. The summary shows which claims are triangulated, which rest on one kind of source and what still needs looking for.

Open a caseWhat you get
$12one-time · every device you sign in on
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Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the For Teachers toolkit, $79 for 72 items.

The case

One record per case. The example is made up.

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What you get

Teaching · For Teachers$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
Evidence counts by proposition and source, triangulation, and the gaps to fill before you write up.
Who it is for
Teacher-researchers, graduate students in education and school improvement teams running case studies.
Format
Browser log. One saved record per case; printed for your methods appendix or as a blank form; CSV of the evidence; export and import a file.
Access
$12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the For Teachers toolkit ($79) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The For Teachers space in Caveat Teaching.
Support
Questions about an order, access or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.
three kinds of source, one claim
Drawn for this page. A claim seen in a document, heard in an interview and watched in a classroom is far stronger than one seen three times in the same kind of source.

How to use it

  1. Open a case with a short code and write its boundaries.
  2. Write one to three propositions, each with a short label such as P1.
  3. Name a rival explanation you will test.
  4. Log every piece of evidence the day you collect it, with its date and label.
  5. Before you write up, fill the gaps the summary lists.

Open a case

The method behind the log

Sources of evidence

Yin names six sources of case study evidence: documentation, archival records, interviews, direct observations, participant observation and physical artifacts. Converging lines from different sources (triangulation) make findings more convincing.

Chain of evidence

A reader should be able to follow a conclusion back to the evidence and the date it was collected. Logging as you go, with labels that tie each item to a proposition, keeps that chain intact.

Rival explanations

Explanatory case studies gain credibility by naming plausible rival explanations and showing whether the evidence supports them. Record challenging evidence as carefully as supporting evidence.

Sources

  1. Yin, R. K. (2018). Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods (6th ed.). SAGE.
  2. Stake, R. E. (1995). The Art of Case Study Research. SAGE.
  3. Merriam, S. B., & Tisdell, E. J. (2016). Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation (4th ed.). Jossey-Bass.
  4. Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic Inquiry. SAGE: credibility and triangulation.

The example case is made up. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.