Qualitative field methods instructions

Examples of video recording resources.
Source: Ray Lucas, Raymond Lucas, 2016

This exercise allows students to explore urban and rural landscapes and the social and environmental implications through a series of qualitative field methods. Students will use walking, photographing, sketching, and other collecting methods to discover and document their first impressions or observations of a site, a so-called phase 0, rather than judging the site through the lens of a research question.

This activity helps students to more broadly consider their case study area before diving into a delimited consideration of their research question. This activity can also help students (and researchers) discover new opportunities and limitations of the research problem.

The activity takes two hours and requires an introduction session (30 minutes), field work (1 hour), and a discussion session (30 minutes).

Program/ structure:

Introduction (30 min)

• Introduction and objectives of method
• Present examples (see attached/provided PDF)
• Hand out assignment sheets (see attached/provided PDF)

Training/ Fieldwork (1h)

• Exploring the field
• Determine groups (or individual) before hand

Result/Discussion (30min)

• Students (or groups) present findings/work
• Followed by a discussion on how the method changed their perception of the study area (particularly if they had gone there to collect data directly to collect their research question data)