Qualitative Case Studies

Yin (2014) stated that a case study is a preferred way to explore intricate social traditions and conduct that can theoretically greatly help researchers to comprehend the situation under investigation. The author holds that case studies are chiefly beneficial to researchers consideration of the problem to pinpoint the academic improvements needed to ameliorate the problem under study and to perform an efficient and reliable assessment of the schools’ international university preparation departments. Creswell (2013) counseled that though a case study is very effective, it also has limitations as well, such as time consumption and financial considerations.

Merriam & Tisdell (2014) stated that the case studies are very effective for researchers

Trotter (2012) stated that this becomes even more concerning if the gathered data is restricted to interviews from a sample of participant’s that is small in number. In this research study, interviews will not be limited to one school, but will be conducted in five different schools in different sections of the country of China, which will broaden the data-collection procedure. Trotter (2012) also stated that the researcher should beware of making inaccurate suppositions that can cause data to be skewed. When the interview respondents tend to give the same or very similar responses to the interview question, the data gathered can be sure of having a high degree of reliability. The aim of this study is to gather data from interview participants that have a great amount of similarity and consistency. This study will be focused on the personal experiences and observations of Chinese international students who are in international university preparation courses along with their teachers and

Nevertheless, those who will participate in the study will have already spent a considerable amount of time in their schools’ international departments where they are preparing their future study in an American university. This will add breadth and depth the data that will be collected. Though it will take a considerable amount of time and effort to get permission to conduct the interviews in five separate schools in China, it will help to ensure that the information collected will have a greater amount of legitimacy and accuracy. Explicitly choosing to conduct the interviews with Chinese students who are already in training for American-style education in five different high schools is a practical way of gathering the best most reliable data. The level of maturity of the high school student participants and the experience of their international and Chinese teachers and that of the administrators will give them the needed level of critical evaluation of the efficacy of their international university preparation programs in which they currently