ABSTRACT
The most critical feature of experiential field work is the type of relationship developed with participants. In traditional survey research, most exchanges are structured to become little more than an exercise for the respondent in guessing a priori preconceptions of the researcher. Lengthy time investment coupled with the intricacies of intensive involvement militates against large samples. Breadth of generalization is sacrificed for depth of insight. An important feature of an experiential approach is its emphasis on induction. Geographers, as distinguished from psychologists and social workers, tend to be more interested in the substantive findings of a study than in the nature of personal relationships between the researcher and other participants. Substantive expectations regarding older persons' environmental experience, culled from scholarly and journalistic literature and supplemented by a personal conception of the aging process, formed a background for the author research.
