Refer to the Teaching Sociology (July 2006) study of the fieldwork methods used by qualitative sociologists, presented in Exercise. Recall that fieldwork methods can be categorized as follows: Interview, Observation plus Participation, Observation Only, and Grounded Theory. The accompanying table (saved in the FIELDWORK file) shows the number of papers published over the past seven years in each category. Suppose a sociologist claims that 70%, 15%, 10%, and 5% of the fieldwork methods involve interview, observation plus participation, observation only, and grounded theory, respectively. Do the data support or refute the claim? Explain.
Fieldwork Method Number of Papers
Interview.............. 5,079
Observation + Participation..... 1,042
Observation Only.......... 848
Grounded Theory......... 537