Sociology fieldwork methods. University of New Mexico professor Jane Hood investigated the fieldwork methods used by qualitative sociologists. (Teaching Sociology, July 2006.) Searching for all published journal articles, dissertations, and conference proceedings over the previous seven years in the Sociological Abstracts database, she discovered that fieldwork methods could be categorized as follows:

Interview, Observation plus Participation, Observation Only, and Grounded Theory. The accompanying table shows the number of papers in each category. Use an appropriate graph to portray the results of the study. Interpret the graph.

Fieldwork Method Number of Papers Interview 5,079 Observation + Participation 1,042 Observation Only 848 Grounded Theory 537