Dialogue Seminars as a Pedagogical Tool for Case Studies

Abstract

Teaching of the case study methodology has a central place in the postgraduate education within the research field of skills and technology. Our pedagogical idea in this project is to implement a doctoral course based on the dialogue seminar method. The dialogue seminar method was developed during the second half of the 90's as a part of Maria Hammaréns work on her doctoral thesis at the high-tech company Combitech Software AB where the aim was to speed up transfer of the experience based knowledge. The conventional methods for pursuing case studies, such as interviews and questionnaires, have serious limitations when the study object is professional knowledge. It is extremely difficult to capture the essence of the professional skills, known as tacit knowledge, by putting direct questions. Especially efforts to construct so-called expert systems have shown the scope of difficulties. Indirect methods, as dialogue seminars, have proven to be more helpful. By implementing the dialogue seminar method in the graduate education we expect to achieve: - students' own experience becomes a central part of the reflection on the use of the method, - qualification from experience to skill occurs through reflection which is structured by means of the dialogue seminar method, - design of doctoral students' case studies can be supported in an early phase, - advanced group leadership of doctorate students where the interaction between the individual and the collective is used as a source of power for individual development, - 15 case studies are carried out by means of the same method; this makes possible a comparative analysis of the ways the method is used, - theory, practice and critical assessment, that otherwise tend to be done as separate moments, are brought together in the same course.