Experimental designs in the social sciences have received increasing attention due to their power to produce causal inferences. Nevertheless, experimental research faces limitations, including limited external validity and unrealistic treatments. We propose combining qualitative fieldwork and experimental design iteratively--moving back-and-forth…

Urban planning research usually requires researchers to undertake fieldwork. This fieldwork is frustrated or enabled by gatekeepers who can influence effective data collection. Traditionally, gatekeepers are perceived as monolithic, neutral, and static individuals, yet they are complex individuals with varying needs and expectations from the…

The ways in which the social scientist approaches field work and ethnographic research have consequences for the final results of the investigation. (ST)

Three general approaches are available to help discipline the use of qualitative methods in educational research without sacrificing subjective understanding, according to this paper. The most private, least confirmable, yet richest approach is the intuitive, which depends on the researcher's thorough immersion in the field setting and…

This paper outlines some of the interview approaches and observational techniques that social scientists use in field study. Discussed are scheduled interviews, open-ended interviews, the delphi technique, participant observation, process observation, and lurking. (Author/AV)

Noting the increasing interest in qualitative research in general and ethnographic research in particular, the authors of this report clarify the place of the latter within the former. The authors present six criteria for an ethnographic approach to education, illustrated with examples, and discuss ethnography's advantages and disadvantages. The…

Examines problems of field research conducted by female researchers in policy settings. Proposes ways to manage role, entree and access, data gathering, reciprocity, and reporting. Raises issue of male-female dynamics in field research, and suggests appropriate roles for female researchers in policy settings. (Author/KH)

The microcomputer offers social science field researchers a valuable tool for managing qualitative research data. In addition to the flexibility and efficiency of the microcomputer, the logic governing its programming and operation imposes a framework on the research process which necessitates that research decisions and strategies be explicit and…

Differences between ethnographic, phenomenological, or qualitative research techniques are reviewed through an explanation of the rationale behind their use and discussion of some of the processes by which this type of research is conducted. While this article is focused on educational research, the discussion applies equally to social…

The ethnographer should be part historian, part psychologist, part sociologist, part anthropologist, and must apply rigorous and consistent rules and procedure to the various steps in his/her research in order to arrive at reliable conclusions. An ethnographic observational study of administrative behavior of eight school superintendents provides…

Concepts and methods intended to enhance the relationship between psychoanalytic theory and psychological anthropology are proposed and illustrations of the application of these concepts and methods are given based on ethnographic data on the Gusii of Kenya. Using five minimum assumptions about the universality of personality, an ethnographic…

Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) allow users a small profile, battery-operated, and relatively low-cost way to take many of the capabilities of a personal computer into the field. This combination of features suggests a great potential for the use of a PDA as a field data collection instrument. This research compared the use of one kind of PDA…

Authors outline a two-quarter, graduate sociology course in fieldwork that they teach at the University of California, Davis. The course addresses the tasks of data collection, focusing gathered data scientifically, data analysis, and dealing with consequences of the research. (GC)

Ways in which computers and audio tape recorder techniques were used to record, index, and present data collected during two summers of field work in a rural area of Mexico are described. The research goal was to study the Otomi Indian shamans. Two computers were used: the Honeywell 6800 DPS-2 and the Osborne-1 microcomputer. The database system…

School context constrains and supports field researchers' data collection activities, just as it can influence the educational change processes being studied. For outsiders, the accessibility of a school is affected by a number of factors. These influence findings and have implications for achieving data comparability across several sites.…