Methods: survey, interview, observation

Three common methods, each with strengths and weaknesses:

Survey: you ask many people the same fixed questions, often through a printed questionnaire.

• Strength: it can be representative: if you pick your sample well, the results tell you about a larger group.
• Weakness: the questions are fixed; you cannot follow up an interesting answer with new questions. It is a one-time snapshot.

Interview: you talk to a few people in person.

• A structured interview uses a fixed list of questions.
• An unstructured interview fixes only the topics; questions emerge naturally in conversation.
• Strength: it is flexible; you can probe deeper, ask 'why?', and hear things you never expected.
• Weakness: it covers only a few people's views, so you cannot generalise widely.

Observation: you systematically watch and record what people do, without deciding beforehand what matters.

• Strength: you see real behaviour, not just what people say they do.
• Remember: what does not happen can matter too. If a certain group never uses an open space in your neighbourhood (for example, girls never use the park in the evening), that absence is itself an important finding.

Combining methods is often best. For example, you could study the history of a local market through archives (old records and newspapers) and also survey today's shopkeepers. Looking at one question from several angles gives a fuller picture.

No method sees everything. Choose the one, or the mix, that best fits your question.