Discovering the future of the case study method in evaluation research

The assignment for this article was to emulate the TRACES section of a journal issue in the 21st century-to predict today’s excerpts that might be cited by future evaluators as making a mark on the profession of evaluation. To identify such traces of case study research-to be uncovered and cherished by evaluators in the 21st century-is like a theme from the movie trilogy, “Back to the Future.” The challenge combines introspection (in fact, once an accepted methodology in experimental psychology) and soothsaying (not ever a methodology, to this writer’s knowledge). Ironically, the ultimate validation test would be a re-reading of this article in the 21st century, but the article is not a guaranteed part of the future, either. A key perspective for this exercise is an appreciation of past case study research. After a reminder about the past, I present three scenarios of the future and then really get into crystal gazing by naming several works that might be part of a 21st century evaluator’s “bookshelf” (a quaint colloquialism by the 21st century because all bookshelves will have been replaced by portable, multi-media, and transparent electronic tiles).