The Practice-Theory-Practice Model (PTPM), a method designed to infuse theoretical perspectives into case study materials and to serve as a guide for examining chance processes in institutions of higher education, is described. The PTPM considers the historical and experiential environment that acts upon an institution, its practices and its actors. The model shows the historical-experiential perspective to be an examination of the forces acting to reinforce and maintain a particular practice. Normative and systemic knowledge are seen as flowing from a study of this practice and comprise the major bodies of knowledge surrounding this current practice. The PTPM also requires careful analysis of research decisions and planning-based decisions made as they pertain to the practice. These knowledge and decision analyses produce the information necessary for the study of the interactions among the different types of knowledge, and between the actors and the knowledge from a practice. The PTPM establishes the valuation process as the mediation point for these actions. Thus the PTPM provides a method not only for studying the components of an institutional change, but also for analyzing the component interactions that lead to reinforced or altered practice. The application of the practice-theory-practice model as a guide for the study of institutional change can be either reconstructive or predictive. The PTPM provides a theoretical outline of the institutional change process and also gives an enriched method for studying such changes. A bibliography is appended. (SW)