ABSTRACT
Planning to embark on fieldwork-based research can be a troublesome matter. This may be so particularly when traditional research methods like the survey questionnaire seem to be inappropriate. Difficulties may be compounded by the belief that the options can only be framed in terms of a dichotomy of quantitative versus qualitative approaches. In one direction it seems are scientific sampling and statistical inference, while in the other direction lies participant observation and ethnographic interpretation. You might feel that the former fails to recognize adequately the complexity, richness and subtlety of the world you want to examine. Yet you do not want, nor are you able, to dispense entirely with methods which can yield ‘hard facts’ and thoroughly tested hypotheses.
