Field Research

Field research or fieldwork is the collection of information outside of a laboratory, library or workplace setting. The approaches and methods used in field research varies across disciplines. For example, biologists who conduct field research may simply observe animals interacting with their environments, whereas social scientists conducting field research may interview or observe people in their natural environments to learn their languages, folklore, and social structures.

Field research involves a range of well-defined, although variable, methods: informal interviews, direct observation, participation in the life of the group, collective discussions, analyses of personal documents produced within the group, self-analysis, results from activities undertaken off- or on-line, and life-histories. Although the method generally is characterized as qualitative research, it may (and often does) include quantitative dimensions.

Read more about Field Research:  History, Conducting Field Research, Field Notes, Kinds of Field Notes, Interviewing, Analyzing Data, Books

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