Karen Soons, Ph.D. College of
Medicine, Dept. of Family Practice
telephone: 656-4330
Experimentation, the principal scientific method......., involves at
a simple level the comparison of groups or individuals who have been
differentially exposed to changes in their environment
(Saxe & Fine, 1981)(p. 45).
Field research is the study of people acting in the
natural courses of their daily lives. The field worker ventures into
the worlds of others in order to learn firsthand about how they live,
how they talk and behave, and what captivates and distresses
them..........It is also seen as a method of study whose
practitioners try to understand the meanings that activities have for
those engaging in them (Emerson, 1981) (p.1).
