Case Study Research in Software Engineering—It is a Case, and it is a Study, but is it a Case Study?

Case studies are regularly published in the software engineering literature, and guidelines for conducting case studies are available. Based on a perception that the label “case study” is assigned to studies that are not case studies, an investigation has been conducted. The aim was to investigate whether or not the label “case study” is correctly used in software engineering research. To address the objective, 100 recent articles found through Scopus when searching for case studies in software engineering have been investigated and classified. Unfortunately, the perception of misuse of the label “case study” is correct. Close to 50% of the articles investigated were judged as not being case studies according to the definition of a case study. We either need to ensure correct use of the label “case study”, or we need another label for its definition. Given that “case study” is a well-established label, it is probably impossible to change the label. Thus, we introduce an alternative definition of case study emphasising its real-life context, and urge researchers to carefully follow the definition of different research methods when presenting their research.