What in the world is a case study?

Professional exams are now more geared towards case studies instead requiring candidates to provide rote-learning responses (however complex things may be). I have been traveling around the country to do workshops on tackling case studies and these students often have one common fear - not knowing the focus areas for the study.

First, let me share what I know about case study... It is a case/scenario built in a particular context for the readers to analyse using their technical skills learnt. In short, the readers (or candidates) are the doctors and the case being the patients. A general physician, as far as I know, would have to know a vast deal of symptoms, root causes, and possible cures before a patient consults him.

With this in mind, you now would understand that the approach to answering a case study and a structured question (according to Bloom's taxonomy) would differ greatly. As far as I understand, Bloom's taxonomy is divided into 5 verb hierarchies (from list, describe, explain, all the way to recommend, propose, evaluate). In short, Bloom's taxonomy serves as a guide in answering a case study, yet it does not have a distinct central focus. It is rather challenging, but it is also interesting as this builds your critical thinking skill.

To sum the above discussions up, you wouldn't know the focus of the case study before you see the pre-seen, or the case. So, at the early stage of preparing for your exam, you must first have your foundations firmly built.

How do you do that?

It is by dissecting your syllabus into its learning objectives. It's painful to notice how students aim to memorize every single chapter, hoping what they study will eventually be applied without understanding why the syllabus is written in such a way (pretty much like how someone can complete a consolidation question within 45 minutes, but not understanding the implication.

A better technique will be to categorize each chapter to its learning outcomes (A, B, C and so forth).
Then you summarize the important points in the learning outcomes as you go by. You'll be surprised that you find relation of Chapter 3 to Chapter 15 of your studies, which you might not have noticed earlier if you read chapter-by-chapter.

My next write-up will cover "how to analyze a case study" and followed by "how to answer a case study question" by using samples from both ACCA and CIMA open sources.