Importance of Field Research

Nadira Sultana Kakoly*

Importance of Field Research.

There is great enthusiasm for community participation among scientist and policy makers with regard to action research. How often do we consider what participation actually means to those for whom we conduct our research? Do we actually value their opinion enough to create an enabling environment for them to voice their opinion in a manner that enables actual participation? I bring up the topic of community mobilization because this is one area of research where one needs to understand ones participants and let them guide the research agenda to a certain extent.  Through my work I observed that community knowledge, while ill-defined, gave insights into complex areas.

Another example I would like to cite is the Public Health students that we take to the field for conducting research who come to Bangladesh from a wide range of countries across the world. Their first exposure of working in the field amidst language difficulties is one of curiosity and amazement. I relish the expressions on their face as they go through the stages of realization of what their research questions actually mean to the lives of their respondents. I then see them working not to find an answer for that one research question which they thought up by toiling many hours.

In conclusion, I may have spoken little about the importance of Meta-analysis and review papers; but my aim was to suggest the importance of field exposure in research and not to suggest that one is necessarily better than the other. There may well be differences of opinion, but I strongly believe that my research agendas are many a times shaped by what I observe and see in the field.

Public Health Open J
. 2015; 1(1): e1. doi: 10.17140/PHOJ-1-e001

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