field trip report structure

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Field report: writing guide from a to z.

February 18, 2021

So, you’ve just been given the difficult task of writing a field report. In most cases, this is your first field report. As such, you probably have absolutely no idea about what to do and how to do it. Fortunately, writing such a report is not as difficult as you imagine. In this blog post, we will discuss everything about the field report. What is a field report? Get all the answers in one blog post! We will also show you how to write a field trip report the easy way. You will find a nice little template you can use and we will also be more than happy to help you with a 100% original sample – upon your request. Read on!

So, What Is a Field Report?

Where can i get a field report example, a simple field report template, writing a field report from start to finish.

• FAQ About the Field Report

Need a Great Field Report Sample?

But what is field report? This is a very good question; one that we would like to answer right from the start. Why? Because if you don’t know the definition of field report, you have little chance of writing one correctly. After all, you can’t write about something you don’t understand, can you?

Basically, a field report is an academic paper that requires you to combine the theory you’ve learned in the classroom with specific methods of observation (applied in a specific environment, outside of class) to describe a subject. Said subject can be a person, a group of persons, an event, or even an animal. This is basically the field report definition.

But what are the objectives of field trip report? This is where it gets a bit tricky. Your report should be very comprehensive and you need to show your professor that you’ve mastered not only the theoretical parts of analysis, but also the practical ones. You need to observe the subject and take note of all things that are of interest. You need to be able to categorize, make connections, gather evidence, organize evidence, and even work with photographs, audio recordings and illustrations. Bottom line, the observation phase is not easy to do.

When it comes to getting a good field report example, there are several options you can explore. However, only one of them is viable for most students. Here are some of the things you can try:

• Go online and try to find an example on a websit e. Now, it’s true that you may be able to find several examples. However, many of them are poorly written. They are missing vital information and may even be missing certain parts. Be aware that some websites will attempt to sell you pre-written reports, which is something you need to stay away from at all costs.
• You can ask around on blogs, forums or social media if somebody has a report example they can share with you. While you may get lucky and get an example, you have no way of knowing whether or not it is correctly written.
• Many students try to hire a freelance writer to write the report . The idea is good, but you need much more than a freelance writer who probably doesn’t know how to write a field trip report After all, just 1% of freelance writers have academic writing experience (and these people are quite expensive to hire).
• You can hire a writing service to get the job done . This is the best way to go if you want to make sure you get a top quality, complete product. For instance, our ENL writers have written hundreds of these reports, so they definitely know what they’re doing. They have access to the best field scouting report forms and know how to write field report sections in a way that will make your professor give you some bonus points.

If you don’t know how to write a field report, it is important to get a good template. Obviously, you will need to learn how to write a field study report eventually. However, by using a good template, you make your life a lot easier. You will always have the basic structure of the report right there in front of you. This means that with a good field report template or daily field report template, you won’t miss any important sections or information. Here is how the basic structure of a field report home looks like:

• An introduction where you describe the objective of your report and underline specific concepts (if any).
• A Description of Activities section. This is where you describe everything that you observe, so that your readers know what is happening.
• An Interpretation and Analysis section. This is the part where you need to interpret and analyze the data you’ve gathered during your observations.
• A Conclusion and Recommendations section. This is the conclusion of your report, so you should never include any new information here.

If necessary, you can add a fifth section, the Appendix. This section will support your analysis in case you need to include lengthy information. Use the Appendix section to include any graphs, charts, graphics, tables, or illustrations.

Now that you know the field study report definition and have a template to work with, it’s time to show you how to write the report from start to finish. Let’s get started:

• Write the introduction . Don’t explain your readers what is field trip report. Instead, provide a bit of background information about the objective of your report. Describe the theoretical perspective and talk a bit about the various types of observations you’ve used.
• Write the Description of Activities section . In other words, describe everything that you have observed in an well organized, logical manner. Each observation needs to be written as a separate paragraph and needs to answer the five Ws: What, Where, When, Who, Why.
• Write the Interpretation and Analysis section . This is where you are free to interpret and analyze all the data you have gathered during your observations. In other words, this section can get pretty lengthy. You are not required to discuss each and every observation, so pick the most important ones (and explain why you consider them to be the most important ones). In this section, you need to convince your professor that you are talking from the perspective of a knowledgeable viewer by applying the theoretical knowledge you’ve accumulated in class.
• Write the field trip report conclusion and include any recommendations . You will basically need to summarize everything and show how your observations support your thesis. The recommendation can be used as a call to action to end the conclusion.
• As with any essay, you must edit the report . Eliminate the unnecessary information and don’t be afraid to delete entire sections if necessary. Your field report is, after all, an academic paper. It should be unbiased, objective and to the point. Also, make sure it is well organized.
• The last thing you need to do is proofread the paper . We would advise you to proofread the field report twice to make sure you didn’t miss anything. You can easily lose points over a few typos, so don’t risk it.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Field Report

Q: What are the differences between a daily field report and a regular report?

A: There are minor differences between field report types, and they all have to do with time. A daily field report is completed daily, while a regular report can take a couple of days or a couple of weeks to compile. The time span of the observations is different, that’s the major difference.

Q: What is the best field report app you can use?

A: Truth be told, we don’t know about any applications that can do a field report for you. In any case, you don’t even need such an app to do a field observation report. A notebook and a pen, a camera and a voice recorder are more than enough tools to record your observations.

Q: What are the top 3 tips you can give me?

A: Here they are:

• Before you begin writing the field experience report, you need to accurately record all aspects of the situation. It’s good to have a plan in place so you don’t miss anything.
• Analyze your observations and try to find the meaning of the things you are observing. Try to figure out what is happening and why it is happening.
• Remember that you need to write a report. Keep this in mind as you do the observations. Stay focused and pay attention to even minor details. Record every piece of new information.

Q: How to sample during the observations phase?

A: There are various methods to sample. For example, Ad Libitum sampling simply means observing what you deem important at a given moment. Behavior sampling translates to observing an entire group and noting specific individual behaviors. Continuous recording sampling and focal sampling are two other widely used methods for a field study report.

We realize you may not know how to write a field observation report. Or perhaps you want to learn how to write a field report for geography in just one day. However, there is an easy way to learn more about the field report. You can simply contact us and request a field report or an observation essay . The sample will be written just for you, so it will be 100% original.

Of course, you are free to use parts of our sample in your own writing. After all, you will own the sample and nobody else will have access to it. And did you know that our experienced writers and professional editors can help you with many other things? We can help you write intro or conclusion, edit your paper or even proofread your work. With our help, your essay will be perfect. So what are you waiting for? Learn how to write a report on a field trip with one of our awesome samples!

Take a break from writing.

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The purpose of a field report in the social sciences is to describe the deliberate observation of people, places, and/or events and to analyze what has been observed in order to identify and categorize common themes in relation to the research problem underpinning the study. The content represents the researcher's interpretation of meaning found in data that has been gathered during one or more observational events.

Flick, Uwe. The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Collection . London: SAGE Publications, 2018; Lofland, John, David Snow, Leon Anderson, and Lyn H. Lofland. Analyzing Social Settings: A Guide to Qualitative Observation and Analysis. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2022; Baker, Lynda. "Observation: A Complex Research Method." Library Trends 55 (Summer 2006): 171-189.; Kellehear, Allan. The Unobtrusive Researcher: A Guide to Methods . New York: Routledge, 2020.

How to Approach Writing a Field Report

How to Begin

Field reports are most often assigned in disciplines of the applied social sciences [e.g., social work, anthropology, gerontology, criminal justice, education, law, the health care services] where it is important to build a bridge of relevancy between the theoretical concepts learned in the classroom and the practice of actually doing the work you are being taught to do. Field reports are also common in certain science disciplines [e.g., geology] but these reports are organized differently and serve a different purpose than what is described below.

Professors will assign a field report with the intention of improving your understanding of key theoretical concepts by applying methods of careful and structured observation of, and reflection about, people, places, or phenomena existing in their natural settings. Field reports facilitate the development of data collection techniques and observation skills and they help you to understand how theory applies to real world situations. Field reports are also an opportunity to obtain evidence through methods of observing professional practice that contribute to or challenge existing theories.

We are all observers of people, their interactions, places, and events; however, your responsibility when writing a field report is to conduct research based on data generated by the act of designing a specific study, deliberate observation, synthesis of key findings, and interpretation of their meaning.

When writing a field report you need to:

• Systematically observe and accurately record the varying aspects of a situation . Always approach your field study with a detailed protocol about what you will observe, where you should conduct your observations, and the method by which you will collect and record your data.
• Continuously analyze your observations . Always look for the meaning underlying the actions you observe. Ask yourself: What's going on here? What does this observed activity mean? What else does this relate to? Note that this is an on-going process of reflection and analysis taking place for the duration of your field research.
• Keep the report’s aims in mind while you are observing . Recording what you observe should not be done randomly or haphazardly; you must be focused and pay attention to details. Enter the observation site [i.e., "field"] with a clear plan about what you are intending to observe and record in relation to the research problem while, at the same time, being prepared to adapt to changing circumstances as they may arise.
• Consciously observe, record, and analyze what you hear and see in the context of a theoretical framework . This is what separates data gatherings from reporting. The theoretical framework guiding your field research should determine what, when, and how you observe and act as the foundation from which you interpret your findings in relation to the underlying assumptions embedded in the theoretical framework .

Techniques to Record Your Observations Although there is no limit to the type of data gathering techniques you can use, these are the most frequently used methods:

Note Taking This is the most common and easiest method of recording your observations. Tips for taking notes include: organizing some shorthand symbols beforehand so that recording basic or repeated actions does not impede your ability to observe, using many small paragraphs, which reflect changes in activities, who is talking, etc., and, leaving space on the page so you can write down additional thoughts and ideas about what’s being observed, any theoretical insights, and notes to yourself that are set aside for further investigation. See drop-down tab for additional information about note-taking.

Photography With the advent of smart phones, an almost unlimited number of high quality photographs can be taken of the objects, events, and people observed during a field study. Photographs can help capture an important moment in time as well as document details about the space where your observation takes place. Taking a photograph can save you time in documenting the details of a space that would otherwise require extensive note taking. However, be aware that flash photography could undermine your ability to observe unobtrusively so assess the lighting in your observation space; if it's too dark, you may need to rely on taking notes. Also, you should reject the idea that photographs represent some sort of "window into the world" because this assumption creates the risk of over-interpreting what they show. As with any product of data gathering, you are the sole instrument of interpretation and meaning-making, not the object itself. Video and Audio Recordings Video or audio recording your observations has the positive effect of giving you an unfiltered record of the observation event. It also facilitates repeated analysis of your observations. This can be particularly helpful as you gather additional information or insights during your research. However, these techniques have the negative effect of increasing how intrusive you are as an observer and will often not be practical or even allowed under certain circumstances [e.g., interaction between a doctor and a patient] and in certain organizational settings [e.g., a courtroom]. Illustrations/Drawings This does not refer to an artistic endeavor but, rather, refers to the possible need, for example, to draw a map of the observation setting or illustrating objects in relation to people's behavior. This can also take the form of rough tables, charts, or graphs documenting the frequency and type of activities observed. These can be subsequently placed in a more readable format when you write your field report. To save time, draft a table [i.e., columns and rows] on a separate piece of paper before an observation if you know you will be entering data in that way.

NOTE:   You may consider using a laptop or other electronic device to record your notes as you observe, but keep in mind the possibility that the clicking of keys while you type or noises from your device can be obtrusive, whereas writing your notes on paper is relatively quiet and unobtrusive. Always assess your presence in the setting where you're gathering the data so as to minimize your impact on the subject or phenomenon being studied.

ANOTHER NOTE:   Techniques of deliberate observation and data gathering are not innate skills; they are skills that must be learned and practiced in order to achieve proficiency. Before your first observation, practice the technique you plan to use in a setting similar to your study site [e.g., take notes about how people choose to enter checkout lines at a grocery store if your research involves examining the choice patterns of unrelated people forced to queue in busy social settings]. When the act of data gathering counts, you'll be glad you practiced beforehand.

YET ANOTHER NOTE:   An issue rarely discussed in the literature about conducting field research is whether you should move around the study site while observing or remaining situated in one place. Moving around can be intrusive, but it facilitates observing people's behavior from multiple vectors. However, if you remain in one place throughout the observation [or during each observation], you will eventually blend into the background and diminish the chance of unintentionally influencing people's behavior. If the site has a complex set of interactions or interdependent activities [e.g., a play ground], consider moving around; if the study site is relatively fixed [e.g., a classroom], then consider staying in one place while observing.

Examples of Things to Document While Observing

• Physical setting . The characteristics of an occupied space and the human use of the place where the observation(s) are being conducted.
• Objects and material culture . This refers to the presence, placement, and arrangement of objects that impact the behavior or actions of those being observed. If applicable, describe the cultural artifacts representing the beliefs [i.e., the values, ideas, attitudes, and assumptions] of the individuals you are observing [e.g., the choice of particular types of clothing in the observation of family gatherings during culturally specific holidays].
• Use of language . Don't just observe but  listen to what is being said, how is it being said, and the tone of conversations among participants.
• Behavior cycles . This refers to documenting when and who performs what behavior or task and how often they occur. Record at which stage this behavior is occurring within the setting.
• The order in which events unfold . Note sequential patterns of behavior or the moment when actions or events take place and their significance. Also, be prepared to note moments that diverge from these sequential patterns of behavior or actions.
• Physical characteristics of subjects. If relevant, document personal characteristics of individuals being observed. Note that, unless this data can be verified in interviews or from documentary evidence, you should only focus on characteristics that can be clearly observed [e.g., clothing, physical appearance, body language].
• Expressive body movements . This would include things like body posture or facial expressions. Note that it may be relevant to also assess whether expressive body movements support or contradict the language used in conversation [e.g., detecting sarcasm].

Brief notes about all of these examples contextualize your observations; however, your observation notes will be guided primarily by your theoretical framework, keeping in mind that your observations will feed into and potentially modify or alter these frameworks.

Sampling Techniques

Sampling refers to the process used to select a portion of the population for study . Qualitative research, of which observation is one method of data gathering, is generally based on non-probability and purposive sampling rather than probability or random approaches characteristic of quantitatively-driven studies. Sampling in observational research is flexible and often continues until no new themes emerge from the data, a point referred to as data saturation.

All sampling decisions are made for the explicit purpose of obtaining the richest possible source of information to answer the research questions. Decisions about sampling assumes you know what you want to observe, what behaviors are important to record, and what research problem you are addressing before you begin the study. These questions determine what sampling technique you should use, so be sure you have adequately answered them before selecting a sampling method.

Ways to sample when conducting an observation include:

• Ad Libitum Sampling -- this approach is not that different from what people do at the zoo; they observe whatever seems interesting at the moment. There is no organized system of recording the observations; you just note whatever seems relevant at the time. The advantage of this method is that you are often able to observe relatively rare or unusual behaviors that might be missed by more deliberately designed sampling methods. This method is also useful for obtaining preliminary observations that can be used to develop your final field study. Problems using this method include the possibility of inherent bias toward conspicuous behaviors or individuals, thereby missing mundane or repeated patterns of behavior, and that you may miss brief interactions in social settings.
• Behavior Sampling -- this involves watching the entire group of subjects and recording each occurrence of a specific behavior of interest and with reference to which individuals were involved. The method is useful in recording rare behaviors missed by other sampling methods and is often used in conjunction with focal or scan methods [see below]. However, sampling can be biased towards particular conspicuous behaviors.
• Continuous Recording -- provides a faithful record of behavior including frequencies, durations, and latencies [the time that elapses between a stimulus and the response to it]. This is a very demanding method because you are trying to record everything within the setting and, thus, measuring reliability may be sacrificed. In addition, durations and latencies are only reliable if subjects remain present throughout the collection of data. However, this method facilitates analyzing sequences of behaviors and ensures obtaining a wealth of data about the observation site and the people within it. The use of audio or video recording is most useful with this type of sampling.
• Focal Sampling -- this involves observing one individual for a specified amount of time and recording all instances of that individual's behavior. Usually you have a set of predetermined categories or types of behaviors that you are interested in observing [e.g., when a teacher walks around the classroom] and you keep track of the duration of those behaviors. This approach doesn't tend to bias one behavior over another and provides significant detail about a individual's behavior. However, with this method, you likely have to conduct a lot of focal samples before you have a good idea about how group members interact. It can also be difficult within certain settings to keep one individual in sight for the entire period of the observation without being intrusive.
• Instantaneous Sampling -- this is where observation sessions are divided into short intervals divided by sample points. At each sample point the observer records if predetermined behaviors of interest are taking place. This method is not effective for recording discrete events of short duration and, frequently, observers will want to record novel behaviors that occur slightly before or after the point of sampling, creating a sampling error. Though not exact, this method does give you an idea of durations and is relatively easy to do. It is also good for recording behavior patterns occurring at a specific instant, such as, movement or body positions.
• One-Zero Sampling -- this is very similar to instantaneous sampling, only the observer records if the behaviors of interest have occurred at any time during an interval instead of at the instant of the sampling point. The method is useful for capturing data on behavior patterns that start and stop repeatedly and rapidly, but that last only for a brief period of time. The disadvantage of this approach is that you get a dimensionless score for an entire recording session, so you only get one one data point for each recording session.
• Scan Sampling -- this method involves taking a census of the entire observed group at predetermined time periods and recording what each individual is doing at that moment. This is useful for obtaining group behavioral data and allows for data that are evenly representative across individuals and periods of time. On the other hand, this method may be biased towards more conspicuous behaviors and you may miss a lot of what is going on between observations, especially rare or unusual behaviors. It is also difficult to record more than a few individuals in a group setting without missing what each individual is doing at each predetermined moment in time [e.g., children sitting at a table during lunch at school]. The use of audio or video recording is useful with this type of sampling.

Alderks, Peter. Data Collection. Psychology 330 Course Documents. Animal Behavior Lab. University of Washington; Emerson, Robert M. Contemporary Field Research: Perspectives and Formulations . 2nd ed. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 2001; Emerson, Robert M. et al. “Participant Observation and Fieldnotes.” In Handbook of Ethnography . Paul Atkinson et al., eds. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001), 352-368; Emerson, Robert M. et al. Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes . 2nd ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011; Ethnography, Observational Research, and Narrative Inquiry. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Hazel, Spencer. "The Paradox from Within: Research Participants Doing-Being-Observed." Qualitative Research 16 (August 2016): 446-457; Pace, Tonio. Writing Field Reports. Scribd Online Library; Presser, Jon and Dona Schwartz. “Photographs within the Sociological Research Process.” In Image-based Research: A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers . Jon Prosser, editor (London: Falmer Press, 1998), pp. 115-130; Pyrczak, Fred and Randall R. Bruce. Writing Empirical Research Reports: A Basic Guide for Students of the Social and Behavioral Sciences . 5th ed. Glendale, CA: Pyrczak Publishing, 2005; Report Writing. UniLearning. University of Wollongong, Australia; Wolfinger, Nicholas H. "On Writing Fieldnotes: Collection Strategies and Background Expectancies.” Qualitative Research 2 (April 2002): 85-95; Writing Reports. Anonymous. The Higher Education Academy.

Structure and Writing Style

How you choose to format your field report is determined by the research problem, the theoretical framework that is driving your analysis, the observations that you make, and/or specific guidelines established by your professor. Since field reports do not have a standard format, it is worthwhile to determine from your professor what the preferred structure and organization should be before you begin to write. Note that field reports should be written in the past tense. With this in mind, most field reports in the social sciences include the following elements:

I.  Introduction The introduction should describe the research problem, the specific objectives of your research, and the important theories or concepts underpinning your field study. The introduction should describe the nature of the organization or setting where you are conducting the observation, what type of observations you have conducted, what your focus was, when you observed, and the methods you used for collecting the data. Collectively, this descriptive information should support reasons why you chose the observation site and the people or events within it. You should also include a review of pertinent literature related to the research problem, particularly if similar methods were used in prior studies. Conclude your introduction with a statement about how the rest of the paper is organized.

II.  Description of Activities

Your readers only knowledge and understanding of what happened will come from the description section of your report because they were not witnesses to the situation, people, or events that you are writing about. Given this, it is crucial that you provide sufficient details to place the analysis that will follow into proper context; don't make the mistake of providing a description without context. The description section of a field report is similar to a well written piece of journalism. Therefore, a useful approach to systematically describing the varying aspects of an observed situation is to answer the "Five W’s of Investigative Reporting." As Dubbels notes [p. 19], these are:

• What -- describe what you observed. Note the temporal, physical, and social boundaries you imposed to limit the observations you made. What were your general impressions of the situation you were observing. For example, as a student teacher, what is your impression of the application of iPads as a learning device in a history class; as a cultural anthropologist, what is your impression of women's participation in a Native American religious ritual?
• Where -- provide background information about the setting of your observation and, if necessary, note important material objects that are present that help contextualize the observation [e.g., arrangement of computers in relation to student engagement with the teacher].
• When -- record factual data about the day and the beginning and ending time of each observation. Note that it may also be necessary to include background information or key events which impact upon the situation you were observing [e.g., observing the ability of teachers to re-engage students after coming back from an unannounced fire drill].
• Who -- note background and demographic information about the individuals being observed e.g., age, gender, ethnicity, and/or any other variables relevant to your study]. Record who is doing what and saying what, as well as, who is not doing or saying what. If relevant, be sure to record who was missing from the observation.
• Why -- why were you doing this? Describe the reasons for selecting particular situations to observe. Note why something happened. Also note why you may have included or excluded certain information.

III.  Interpretation and Analysis

Always place the analysis and interpretations of your field observations within the larger context of the theoretical assumptions and issues you described in the introduction. Part of your responsibility in analyzing the data is to determine which observations are worthy of comment and interpretation, and which observations are more general in nature. It is your theoretical framework that allows you to make these decisions. You need to demonstrate to the reader that you are conducting the field work through the eyes of an informed viewer and from the perspective of a casual observer.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when analyzing your observations:

• What is the meaning of what you have observed?
• Why do you think what you observed happened? What evidence do you have for your reasoning?
• What events or behaviors were typical or widespread? If appropriate, what was unusual or out of the ordinary? How were they distributed among categories of people?
• Do you see any connections or patterns in what you observed?
• Why did the people you observed proceed with an action in the way that they did? What are the implications of this?
• Did the stated or implicit objectives of what you were observing match what was achieved?
• What were the relative merits of the behaviors you observed?
• What were the strengths and weaknesses of the observations you recorded?
• Do you see connections between what you observed and the findings of similar studies identified from your review of the literature?
• How do your observations fit into the larger context of professional practice? In what ways have your observations possibly changed or affirmed your perceptions of professional practice?
• Have you learned anything from what you observed?

NOTE:   Only base your interpretations on what you have actually observed. Do not speculate or manipulate your observational data to fit into your study's theoretical framework.

IV.  Conclusion and Recommendations

The conclusion should briefly recap of the entire study, reiterating the importance or significance of your observations. Avoid including any new information. You should also state any recommendations you may have based on the results of your study. Be sure to describe any unanticipated problems you encountered and note the limitations of your study. The conclusion should not be more than two or three paragraphs.

V.  Appendix

This is where you would place information that is not essential to explaining your findings, but that supports your analysis [especially repetitive or lengthy information], that validates your conclusions, or that contextualizes a related point that helps the reader understand the overall report. Examples of information that could be included in an appendix are figures/tables/charts/graphs of results, statistics, pictures, maps, drawings, or, if applicable, transcripts of interviews. There is no limit to what can be included in the appendix or its format [e.g., a DVD recording of the observation site], provided that it is relevant to the study's purpose and reference is made to it in the report. If information is placed in more than one appendix ["appendices"], the order in which they are organized is dictated by the order they were first mentioned in the text of the report.

VI.  References

List all sources that you consulted and obtained information from while writing your field report. Note that field reports generally do not include further readings or an extended bibliography. However, consult with your professor concerning what your list of sources should be included and be sure to write them in the preferred citation style of your discipline or is preferred by your professor [i.e., APA, Chicago, MLA, etc.].

Alderks, Peter. Data Collection. Psychology 330 Course Documents. Animal Behavior Lab. University of Washington; Dubbels, Brock R. Exploring the Cognitive, Social, Cultural, and Psychological Aspects of Gaming and Simulations . Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2018; Emerson, Robert M. Contemporary Field Research: Perspectives and Formulations . 2nd ed. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 2001; Emerson, Robert M. et al. “Participant Observation and Fieldnotes.” In Handbook of Ethnography . Paul Atkinson et al., eds. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001), 352-368; Emerson, Robert M. et al. Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes . 2nd ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011; Ethnography, Observational Research, and Narrative Inquiry. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Pace, Tonio. Writing Field Reports. Scribd Online Library; Pyrczak, Fred and Randall R. Bruce. Writing Empirical Research Reports: A Basic Guide for Students of the Social and Behavioral Sciences . 5th ed. Glendale, CA: Pyrczak Publishing, 2005; Report Writing. UniLearning. University of Wollongong, Australia; Wolfinger, Nicholas H. "On Writing Fieldnotes: Collection Strategies and Background Expectancies.” Qualitative Research 2 (April 2002): 85-95; Writing Reports. Anonymous. The Higher Education Academy.

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How to Write a Field Trip Report

How to Create a Nursing Practicum Journal

Visiting the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., or touring the wetlands in Florida are two examples of exciting and educational field trips for middle school and high school students. You might take notes during your trip, so you can come up with an interesting thesis for your assigned field trip report. For example, you might write about a shuttle launching or an unusual creature who lives in the wetlands. Field trip reports should include a compelling introduction, a well-structured body and a strong conclusion. Discuss your favorite elements of the trip, so your assignment reads like a personal observation report or narrative essay.

Lead with Interesting Introduction

Start your introduction with information that leads up to your thesis statement, which is usually the last sentence of your introduction. You might focus on an interesting anecdote from your trip or discuss particular features that made an impression on you. Use these tidbits to develop your thesis. For example, you might create a three-point thesis, such as "The wetlands in Florida have vulnerable ecosystems, experience climate changes and endure seasonal flooding." If your teacher wants a technical field trip report, start with an abstract -- a brief summary paragraph -- that clearly explains where you went and what you learned during the field trip. Use research or literature to support your statements in your field trip report. For example, if you visited a local arboretum, you might use information from display placards to describe your favorite types of foliage and their seasonal life cycles.

Provide Facility Details

Discuss the field trip location by describing the facilities and explaining what you saw or experienced. For example, if you visited an astronomy observatory, discuss viewing areas and the telescopes you used. If you were using inside telescopes, describe the height of the domed ceilings, the different types of lighting and the approximate distance to the stars or planets. By providing extensive details, you show your teacher that you were paying close attention to the instructor, or in the observatory example, to the astronomer's explanations. You might also discuss any handouts or educational materials you received during the field trip.

Discuss Surprising Findings

Explain in your field trip report any new information or details that took you by surprise and include statistical data to support your findings. This type of data shows that you learned something during the field trip. For example, if you visited an underground cave, you might discuss a particular type of bat or an unusual plant that grows in the cave. Use outside research or information from the tour guide to support your data, and cite your references clearly, so your teacher knows where you got the information. When possible, use academic journals or magazines to support details in your observation report of the field visit.

End with Compelling Conclusion

Conclude your field trip report with a summary of your overall experience, including reasons why others might want to visit the location. You might include a brief summary of a personal discussion you had with the tour guide or field trip facilitator or cite a distinguishable fact from your research. If you participated in any hands-on activities or your class was allowed to see behind the scenes, you might end your paper by discussing those highlights. For example, if you visited a science center, you might discuss fossils you examined, electricity experiments you participated in, or hands-on experiments with wind tunnels that allowed you to examine weather patterns.

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As curriculum developer and educator, Kristine Tucker has enjoyed the plethora of English assignments she's read (and graded!) over the years. Her experiences as vice-president of an energy consulting firm have given her the opportunity to explore business writing and HR. Tucker has a BA and holds Ohio teaching credentials.

How to Write a Field Trip Report: A Comprehensive Guide for Students

• by Adam Davis
• October 18, 2023

Field trips are an exciting and educational opportunity for students to step outside the confines of the classroom and explore the real world. Whether you’re visiting a museum, a historical site, or a nature reserve, writing a field trip report is an essential task to document your experience and reflect on what you have learned.

In this blog post, we will guide you through the process of writing a field trip report. We’ll cover everything from understanding what a field study report is to providing examples of field research. Additionally, we’ll explore the importance of using transition words or phrases and how to write a fieldwork report specifically in geography.

By the end of this post, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to structure your field trip report, highlight key findings, and convey your observations effectively. So, let’s dive in and discover the art of crafting an impressive field trip report!

How to Write a Field Trip Report

Field trips are an exciting break from the monotony of the classroom, allowing students to explore the world outside the textbook. But what happens after the trip is over? That’s right, the dreaded field trip report. Don’t worry, though! I’m here to guide you through the ins and outs of writing a captivating field trip report that will impress your teachers and keep boredom at bay.

1. Start with a Catchy Introduction

No one likes a dull and lifeless introduction , especially not your teacher. Grab their attention right from the start by setting the scene of your field trip. Paint a vivid picture in their minds with words that transport them to the destination. Whether it was a visit to the local zoo or a thrilling adventure to a science museum, make them feel like they were right there with you.

2. Share Your Experiences, the Fun and the “Oops”

Now that you’ve captured your teacher’s attention, it’s time to dive into the juicy details of your field trip. Share the memorable moments, the funny anecdotes, and the exciting discoveries. Did your best friend accidentally step in elephant droppings? Did you get lost in the labyrinth of an art museum? These are the stories that will make your field trip report stand out from the rest.

3. Showcase Your Knowledge

A field trip is not just about having a grand adventure; it’s also an opportunity to learn. Impress your teacher by showcasing the knowledge you gained during the trip. Highlight the educational aspects , such as the new facts you learned, the exhibits that fascinated you, and any interactions with experts that expanded your understanding of the subject. Remember, knowledge is power, and it’s your time to shine!

4. Organize Your Thoughts

The last thing you want is for your field trip report to look like a chaotic jumble of random thoughts. Take a deep breath and organize your ideas before putting pen to paper (or in this case, fingers to keyboard). Divide your report into clear and logical sections, such as “Introduction,” “Highlights,” and “Key Learnings.” This will make it easier for your teacher to follow along and appreciate your well-structured masterpiece.

5. Sprinkle Some Humor

Writing a field trip report doesn’t have to be all serious business. Inject some humor into your writing to keep your teacher entertained. Share a witty remark or a funny observation that made everyone laugh during the trip. Just remember to strike a balance — you want to amuse, not distract. So, make your teacher chuckle while still maintaining the informative nature of your report.

6. Conclude with a Bang

It’s time to wrap it all up and leave a lasting impression. Summarize your key takeaways from the field trip and leave the reader with something to ponder. Perhaps a thought-provoking question or a call to action related to the topic. Let your creativity shine through, and make your conclusion a memorable one that ties together everything you’ve written.

Now that you know the secrets to writing an exceptional field trip report, go forth and conquer! Your teacher will be impressed by your storytelling skills, your knowledge retention, and your ability to entertain with a touch of humor. So, grab that pen or open that laptop, and let your field trip experiences come to life on the page. Happy writing!

FAQ: How to Write a Field Trip Report?

What are transition words or phrases.

Transition words and phrases are like secret passageways in your writing. They smoothly guide your readers from one idea to another, ensuring a seamless flow. It’s like taking your readers on a thrilling adventure rather than leaving them stranded in a maze of disconnected thoughts. So, grab your compass and sprinkle these magical words throughout your field trip report!

How Do You Write a Field Trip Report

Oh, the joys of sharing your field trip experiences with others! To write a captivating field trip report, follow these steps:

Step 1: Introduction, Ahoy!

Get your readers hooked from the get-go. Engage them with a brief overview of your field trip and its purpose. Remember, first impressions matter, even in the wondrous land of field trip reports!

Step 2: Choose Your Field Trip Highlights

No one wants to hear endless tales of every single droplet in that ocean of knowledge. Select the most exciting and educational parts of your trip, like spotting rare species or uncovering hidden treasures. These gems will make your report shine bright like a flashlight in a dark cave!

Step 3: Detailed Descriptions

Paint a vivid picture of your adventures using descriptive and colorful language. Imagine you’re setting the stage for a thrilling play. Make your readers feel like they’re right there with you, dodging hazards and exploring breathtaking sights!

Step 4: Data and Analysis

Numbers, graphs, and charts might not be as thrilling as sword fights and dragons, but they are vital to give your field trip report substance. Include any scientific data you collected, and analyze it like a detective, searching for hidden clues in the numbers.

Step 5: Conclusion and Reflections

Wrap up your field trip report with a strong conclusion that summarizes your most significant findings. Reflect on what you learned and how the trip impacted your understanding of the subject. Don’t be afraid to add a dash of introspection and personal growth.

What’s a Transitional Phrase

Ah, transitional phrases, the unsung heroes of coherent writing! These magical phrases connect your thoughts like puzzle pieces, guiding your readers effortlessly from one paragraph to another. Examples include “On the other hand,” “In addition,” or “As a result.” They’re like the smoothie in your writing blender, blending your ideas into a tasty concoction your readers will savor!

What Do You Mean by Field Study Report

A field study report is a formal document that recounts the details of a research or educational trip. It’s like a treasure map that guides readers through your exciting journey. This report usually includes an introduction, a description of the field trip, data analysis, and a conclusion. Think of it as your chance to become a storytelling scientist!

What Are Examples of Field Research

Field research, my dear adventurer, is a thrilling expedition that takes you out of the dull confines of a classroom or laboratory. It involves gathering data in the real world, beyond the pages of textbooks. Examples of field research include studying animal behavior in natural habitats, exploring geological formations, or investigating the impact of pollution in a local community. So pack your backpack and get ready for an unforgettable quest!

How Do You Write a Fieldwork Report in Geography

Ah, geography, the art of discovering the secrets this remarkable world holds! To write a captivating fieldwork report in geography, follow these steps:

Step 1: Research and Planning

Choose a fascinating research topic and plan your fieldwork accordingly. Whether you’re exploring rivers, mountains, or urban landscapes, ensure your adventure aligns with your research objectives. No need to pack a spyglass, but a map could come in handy!

Step 2: Data Collection

Get your detective hat on! Collect data through observations, surveys, interviews, or measurements. Just like a secret agent, remember to document everything meticulously, as accuracy is key.

Step 3: Analysis and Interpretation

Once you’ve gathered the data, it’s time to decode its hidden messages. Analyze and interpret the information you collected, using geographic tools and concepts to unveil the grand patterns of our wonderful planet.

Step 4: Results and Conclusions

Present your findings as if you were unveiling buried treasure. Summarize the results of your analysis and draw thoughtful conclusions. Reflect on the significance of your research and its implications for the wider world. You might just become a geography adventurer who changes the course of history!

And there you have it, your ultimate guide to writing a captivating field trip report! So, pick up your pen, grab your notebook, and embark on an adventure of words as you share your thrilling field trip experiences with the world!

• catchy introduction
• field research
• field trips
• fieldwork report
• grand adventure
• thrilling adventure
• transition words

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Organizing Academic Research Papers: Writing a Field Report

• Purpose of Guide
• Design Flaws to Avoid
• Glossary of Research Terms
• Narrowing a Topic Idea
• Broadening a Topic Idea
• Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
• Academic Writing Style
• Choosing a Title
• Making an Outline
• Paragraph Development
• Executive Summary
• Background Information
• The Research Problem/Question
• Theoretical Framework
• Citation Tracking
• Content Alert Services
• Evaluating Sources
• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Tertiary Sources
• What Is Scholarly vs. Popular?
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Using Non-Textual Elements
• Limitations of the Study
• Common Grammar Mistakes
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Footnotes or Endnotes?
• Further Readings
• Annotated Bibliography
• Dealing with Nervousness
• Using Visual Aids
• Grading Someone Else's Paper
• How to Manage Group Projects
• Multiple Book Review Essay
• Reviewing Collected Essays
• About Informed Consent
• Writing Field Notes
• Writing a Policy Memo
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Acknowledgements

Field reports require the researcher to combine theory and analysis learned in the classroom with methods of observation and practice applied outside of the classroom. The purpose of field reports is to describe an observed person, place, or event and to analyze that observation data in order to identify and categorize common themes in relation to the research problem(s) underpinning the study. The data is often in the form of notes taken during the observation but it can also include any form of data gathering, such as, photography, illustrations, or audio recordings.

How to Approach Writing a Field Report

How to Begin

Field reports are most often assigned in the applied social sciences [e.g., social work, anthropology, gerontology, criminal justice, education, law, the health care professions] where it is important to build a bridge of relevancy between the theoretical concepts learned in the classroom and the practice of actually doing the work you are being taught to do. Field reports are also common in certain science and technology disciplines [e.g., geology] but these reports are organized differently and for different purposes than what is described below.

Professors will assign a field report with the intention of improving your understanding of key theoretical concepts through a method of careful and structured observation of and reflection about real life practice. Field reports facilitate the development of data collection techniques and observation skills and allow you to understand how theory applies to real world situations. Field reports are also an opportunity to obtain evidence through methods of observing professional practice that challenge or refine existing theories.

We are all observers of people, their interactions, places, and events; however, your responsibility when writing a field report is to create a research study based on data generated by the act of observation, a synthesis of key findings, and an interpretation of their meaning. When writing a field report you need to:

• Systematically observe and accurately record the varying aspects of a situation . Always approach your field study with a detailed plan about what you will observe, where you should conduct your observations, and the method by which you will collect and record your data.
• Continuously analyze your observations . Always look for the meaning underlying the actions you observe. Ask yourself: What's going on here? What does this observed activity mean? What else does this relate to? Note that this is an on-going process of reflection and analysis taking place for the duration of your field research.
• Keep the report’s aims in mind while you are observing . Recording what you observe should not be done randomly or haphazardly; you must be focused and pay attention to details. Enter the field with a clear plan about what you are intending to observe and record while, at the same time, be prepared to adapt to changing circumstances as they may arise.
• Consciously observe, record, and analyze what you hear and see in the context of a theoretical framework . This is what separates data gatherings from simple reporting. The theoretical framework guiding your field research should determine what, when, and how you observe and act as the foundation from which you interpret your findings.

Techniques to Record Your Observations Note Taking This is the most commonly used and easiest method of recording your observations. Tips for taking notes include: organizing some shorthand symbols beforehand so that recording basic or repeated actions does not impede your ability to observe, using many small paragraphs, which reflect changes in activities, who is talking, etc., and, leaving space on the page so you can write down additional thoughts and ideas about what’s being observed, any theoretical insights, and notes to yourself about may require further investigation. See drop-down tab for additional information about note-taking. Video and Audio Recordings Video or audio recording your observations has the positive effect of giving you an unfiltered record of the observation event. It also facilitates repeated analysis of your observations. However, these techniques have the negative effect of increasing how intrusive you are as an observer and will often not be practical or even allowed under certain circumstances [e.g., interaction between a doctor and a patient] and in certain organizational settings [e.g., a courtroom]. Illustrations/Drawings This does not an artistic endeavor but, rather, refers to the possible need, for example, to draw a map of the observation setting or illustrating objects in relation to people's behavior. This can also take the form of rough tables or graphs documenting the frequency and type of activities observed. These can be subsequently placed in a more readable format when you write your field report.

Examples of Things to Document While Observing

• Physical setting . The characteristics of an occupied space and the human use of the place where the observation(s) are being conducted.
• Objects and material culture . The presence, placement, and arrangement of objects that impact the behavior or actions of those being observed. If applicable, describe the cultural artifacts representing the beliefs--values, ideas, attitudes, and assumptions--used by the individuals you are observing.
• Use of language . Don't just observe but listen to what is being said, how is it being said, and, the tone of conversation among participants.
• Behavior cycles . This refers to documenting when and who performs what behavior or task and how often they occur. Record at which stage is this behavior occurring within the setting.
• The order in which events unfold . Note sequential patterns of behavior or the moment when actions or events take place and their significance.
• Physical characteristics of subjects. If relevant, note age, gender, clothing, etc. of individuals.
• Expressive body movements . This would include things like body posture or facial expressions. Note that it may be relevant to also assess whether expressive body movements support or contradict the use of language.

Brief notes about all of these examples contextualize your observations; however, your observation notes will be guided primarily by your theoretical framework, keeping in mind that your observations will feed into and potentially modify or alter these frameworks.

Sampling Techniques

Sampling refers to the process used to select a portion of the population for study . Qualitative research, of which observation is one method, is generally based on non-probability and purposive sampling rather than probability or random approaches characteristic of quantitatively-driven studies. Sampling in observational research is flexible and often continues until no new themes emerge from the data, a point referred to as data saturation.

All sampling decisions are made for the explicit purpose of obtaining the richest possible source of information to answer the research questions. Decisions about sampling assumes you know what you want to observe, what behaviors are important to record, and what research problem you are addressing before you begin the study. These questions determine what sampling technique you should use, so be sure you have adequately answered them before selecting a sampling method.

Ways to sample when conducting an observation include:

Ad Libitum Sampling -- this approach is not that different from what people do at the zoo--observing whatever seems interesting at the moment. There is no organized system of recording the observations; you just note whatever seems relevant at the time. The advantage of this method is that you are often able to observe relatively rare or unusual behaviors that might be missed by more deliberate sampling methods. This method is also useful for obtaining preliminary observations that can be used to develop your final field study. Problems using this method include the possibility of inherent bias toward conspicuous behaviors or individuals and that you may miss brief interactions in social settings.

Behavior Sampling -- this involves watching the entire group of subjects and recording each occurance of a specific behavior of particular interest and with reference to which individuals were involved. The method is useful in recording rare behaviors missed by other sampling methods and is often used in conjunction with focal or scan methods. However, sampling can be biased towards particular conspicuous behaviors.

Continuous Recording -- provides a faithful record of behavior including frequencies, durations, and latencies [the time that elapses between a stimulus and the response to it]. This is a very demanding method because you are trying to record everything within the setting and, thus, measuring reliability may be sacrificed. In addition, durations and latencies are only reliable if subjects remain present throughout the collection of data. However, this method facilitates analyzing sequences of behaviors and ensures obtaining a wealth of data about the observation site and the people within it. The use of audio or video recording is most useful with this type of sampling.

Focal Sampling -- this involves observing one individual for a specified amount of time and recording all instances of that individual's behavior. Usually you have a set of predetermined categories or types of behaviors that you are interested in observing [e.g., when a teacher walks around the classroom] and you keep track of the duration of those behaviors. This approach doesn't tend to bias one behavior over another and provides significant detail about a individual's behavior. However, with this method, you likely have to conduct a lot of focal samples before you have a good idea about how group members interact. It can also be difficult within certain settings to keep one individual in sight for the entire period of the observation.

Instantaneous Sampling -- this is where observation sessions are divided into short intervals divided by sample points. At each sample point the observer records if predetermined behaviors of interest are taking place. This method is not effective for recording discrete events of short duration and, frequently, observers will want to record novel behaviors that occur slightly before or after the point of sampling, creating a sampling error. Though not exact, this method does give you an idea of durations and is relatively easy to do. It is also good for recording behavior patterns occurring at a specific instant, such as, movement or body positions.

One-Zero Sampling -- this is very similar to instantaneous sampling, only the observer records if the behaviors of interest have occurred at any time during an interval instead of at the instant of the sampling point. The method is useful for capturing data on behavior patterns that start and stop repeatedly and rapidly, but that last only for a brief period of time. The disadvantage of this approach is that you get a dimensionless score for an entire recording session, so you only get one one data point for each recording session.

Scan Sampling -- this method involves taking a census of the entire observed group at predetermined time periods and recording what each individual is doing at that moment. This is useful for obtaining group behavioral data and allows for data that are evenly representative across individuals and periods of time. On the other hand, this method may be biased towards more conspicuous behaviors and you may miss a lot of what is going on between observations, especially rare or unusual behaviors.

Alderks, Peter. Data Collection. Psychology 330 Course Documents. Animal Behavior Lab. University of Washington; Emerson, Robert M. Contemporary Field Research: Perspectives and Formulations. 2nd ed. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 2001; Emerson, Robert M. et al. “Participant Observation and Fieldnotes.” In Handbook of Ethnography. Paul Atkinson et al., eds. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001), 352-368; Emerson, Robert M. et al. Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. 2nd ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011; Ethnography, Observational Research, and Narrative Inquiry . Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Pace, Tonio. Writing Field Reports . Scribd Online Library; Pyrczak, Fred and Randall R. Bruce. Writing Empirical Research Reports: A Basic Guide for Students of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. 5th ed. Glendale, CA: Pyrczak Publishing, 2005; Report Writing . UniLearning. University of Wollongong, Australia; Wolfinger, Nicholas H. On Writing Fieldnotes: Collection Strategies and Background Expectancies.” Qualitative Research 2 (April 2002): 85-95; Writing Reports . Anonymous. The Higher Education Academy.

Structure and Writing Style

How you choose to format your field report is determined by the research problem, the theoretical perspective that is driving your analysis, the observations that you make, and/or specific guidelines established by your professor. Since field reports do not have a standard format, it is worthwhile to determine from your professor what the preferred organization should be before you begin to write. Note that field reports should be written in the past tense. With this in mind, most field reports in the social sciences include the following elements:

I.  Introduction The introduction should describe the specific objective and important theories or concepts underpinning your field study. The introduction should also describe the nature of the organization or setting where you are conducting the observation, what type of observations you have conducted, what your focus was, when you observed, and the methods you used for collecting the data. You should also include a review of pertinent literature.

II.  Description of Activities

Your readers only knowledge and understanding of what happened will come from the description section of your report because they have not been witness to the situation, people, or events that you are writing about. Given this, it is crucial that you provide sufficient details to place the analysis that will follow into proper context; don't make the mistake of providing a description without context. The description section of a field report is similar to a well written piece of journalism. Therefore, a helpful approach to systematically describing the varying aspects of an observed situation is to answer the "Five W’s of Investigative Reporting." These are:

• What -- describe what you observed. Note the temporal, physical, and social boundaries you imposed to limit the observations you made. What were your general impressions of the situation you were observing. For example, as a student teacher, what is your impression of the application of iPads as a learning device in a history class; as a cultural anthropologist, what is your impression of women participating in a Native American religious ritual?
• Where -- provide background information about the setting of your observation and, if necessary, note important material objects that are present that help contextualize the observation [e.g., arrangement of computers in relation to student engagement with the teacher].
• When -- record factual data about the day and the beginning and ending time of each observation. Note that it may also be necessary to include background information or key events which impact upon the situation you were observing [e.g., observing the ability of teachers to re-engage students after coming back from an unannounced fire drill].
• Who -- note the participants in the situation in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, and/or any other variables relevant to your study. Record who is doing what and saying what, as well as, who is not doing or saying what. If relevant, be sure to record who was missing from the observation.
• Why -- why were you doing this? Describe the reasons for selecting particular situations to observe. Note why something happened. Also note why you may have included or excluded certain information.

III.  Interpretation and Analysis

Always place the analysis and interpretations of your field observations within the larger context of the theories and issues you described in the introduction. Part of your responsibility in analyzing the data is to determine which observations are worthy of comment and interpretation, and which observations are more general in nature. It is your theoretical framework that allows you to make these decisions. You need to demonstrate to the reader that you are looking at the situation through the eyes of an informed viewer, not as a lay person.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when analyzing your observations:

• What is the meaning of what you have observed?
• Why do you think what you observed happened? What evidence do you have for your reasoning?
• What events or behaviors were typical or widespread? If appropriate, what was unusual or out of ordinary? How were they distributed among categories of people?
• Do you see any connections or patterns in what you observed?
• Why did the people you observed proceed with an action in the way that they did? What are the implications of this?
• Did the stated or implicit objectives of what you were observing match what was achieved?
• What were the relative merits of the behaviors you observed?
• What were the strengths and weaknesses of the observations you recorded?
• Do you see connections between what you observed and the findings of similar studies identified from your review of the literature?
• How do your observations fit into the larger context of professional practice? In what ways have your observations possibly changed your perceptions of professional practice?
• Have you learned anything from what you observed?

NOTE: Only base your interpretations on what you have actually observed. Do not speculate or manipulate your observational data to fit into your study's theoretical framework.

IV.  Conclusion and Recommendations

The conclusion should briefly recap of the entire study, reiterating the importance or significance of your observations. Avoid including any new information. You should also state any recommendations you may have. Be sure to describe any unanticipated problems you encountered and note the limitations of your study. The conclusion should not be more than two or three paragraphs.

V.  Appendix

This is where you would place information that is not essential to explaining your findings, but that supports your analysis [especially repetitive or lengthy information], that validates your conclusions, or that contextualizes a related point that helps the reader understand the overall report. Examples of information that could be included in an appendix are figures/tables/charts/graphs of results, statistics, pictures, maps, drawings, or, if applicable, transcripts of interviews. There is no limit to what can be included in the appendix or its format [e.g., a DVD recording of the observation site], provided that it is relevant to the study's purpose and reference is made to it in the report. If information is placed in more than one appendix ["appendices"], the order in which they are organized is dictated by the order they were first mentioned in the text of the report.

VI.  References

List all sources that you consulted and obtained information from while writing your field report. Note that field reports generally do not include further readings or an extended bibliography. However, consult with your professor concerning what your list of sources should be included. Be sure to write them in the preferred citation style of your discipline [i.e., APA, Chicago, MLA, etc.].

Alderks, Peter. Data Collection. Psychology 330 Course Documents. Animal Behavior Lab. University of Washington; Emerson, Robert M. Contemporary Field Research: Perspectives and Formulations. 2nd ed. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 2001; Emerson, Robert M. et al. “Participant Observation and Fieldnotes.” In Handbook of Ethnography. Paul Atkinson et al., eds. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001), 352-368; Emerson, Robert M. et al. Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. 2nd ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011; Ethnography, Observational Research, and Narrative Inquiry . Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Pace, Tonio. Writing Field Reports . Scribd Online Library; Pyrczak, Fred and Randall R. Bruce. Writing Empirical Research Reports: A Basic Guide for Students of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. 5th ed. Glendale, CA: Pyrczak Publishing, 2005; Report Writing. UniLearning. University of Wollongong, Australia; Wolfinger, Nicholas H. On Writing Fieldnotes: Collection Strategies and Background Expectancies.” Qualitative Research 2 (April 2002): 85-95; Writing Reports. Anonymous. The Higher Education Academy.

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Want to Write a Field Study Report? 6 Key Points to Consider!

Research conduction is not just limited to your laboratory, library, or work place setting. As part of your research you may have to step out in the field (any place other than your regular research lab or work station) to collect raw data for analysis and then publish it as a field study report. In this article, we will discuss the elements of a field study report and the key points to consider while writing one!

Table of Contents

What is a Field Study Report?

A field study report is defined as a documentation of analysis of particular phenomena, behaviors, processes based on theories and observations made by the researcher in the field. These observed and analyzed theories are used to identify solutions for a specific project or case report .

What is the Importance of Field Study Report?

• A field study report is important as part of many operational and technical documentation processes in various industries including field services, education, medicine, and management.
• Moreover, it gives detailed information of an observed subject or specimen which is used to analyze and compare data against a theoretical framework .
• It also helps in identifying challenges in implementing solutions to form a standardized protocol.
• Furthermore, it helps in capturing information on resource management and discovering new processes for effective and optimized solutions.

How to Write Field Research Notes?

A field study report begins with an idea and ends with a solution. Hence, while conducting field research, one must follow a planned route of taking notes for proper documentation of the observations made. A successful field study report begins when the researcher is involved in the observational research process of taking proper notes.

Based on the methods, the field research notes are categorized in four different types:

1. Job Notes:

• Researchers use this method of taking field notes whilst they are conducting the study.
• These notes are taken in close proximity and in open sight with the study’s subject.
• These notes are brief, concise, in the form that can be built on by the researcher later while creating the report.

2. Field Notes Proper:

• This method of taking field notes is to expand them immediately after the completion of study.
• These notes are detailed and the words have to be as close to the terms that will be used in the final field study report.

3. Methodological Notes:

• This type of field notes involve research methods used by the researcher, newly proposed research methods, and the way to monitor their progress.
• Methodological notes are either attached with field notes or filed separately. These notes are always placed at the end of the field study report.

4. Journals and Diaries:

• This method of taking notes is an insight into the researcher’s life as it tracks all aspects of the researcher’s life.
• It helps in eliminating any bias that may have affected the field research.

Examples of Things to Document During Field Study

1. Physical Setting:

Observe the characteristics of the space where the study is being conducted.

2. Objects and Material:

The presence, placement, and arrangement of objects that affect the behavior of the subject being studied.

3. Language Used:

Observe the language being used by study participants (in case of human participation).

4. Behavior Cycles:

Document who is performing what behavior at what time and situation.

5. Physical Characteristics of Participants/Subjects:

Observe and note personal characteristics of subjects.

6. Body Movements:

Things such as body posture or facial expressions and assess if these movements support or contradict the language used while communicating.

Data Collection in Field Report (Sampling Techniques)

Data collection process in field study is also known as sampling. It refers to the process used to select a portion of the population for study. Selection of an ideal sampling technique is imperative to obtain the richest possible source of information to answer the research questions.

Different Types of Sampling Techniques:

Ad Libitum Sampling

This technique involves observing whatever seems interesting at the moment. It does not follow an organized system of recording the observations.

Behavior Sampling

This sampling technique involves watching the entire group of subjects and recording each occurrence of a specific behavior of interest with reference to which individuals were involved.

Continuous Recording

This sampling technique includes recording of frequencies, durations, and latencies in a continuous and systematic pattern.

Focal Sampling

The focal sampling technique involves observing one individual/subject for a specified amount of time and recording all instances of that individual’s behavior.

Instantaneous Sampling

The technique of instantaneous sampling involves dividing observation sessions into short intervals by sample points.

One-Zero Sampling

The one-zero sampling technique is similar to instantaneous sampling. It involves recording only if the behaviors of interest have occurred at any time during an interval instead of at the instant of the sampling point.

Scan Sampling

The scan sampling technique involves taking a census of the entire observed group at predetermined time periods and recording what each individual is doing at that moment.

What is the Structure and Writing Style of Field Study Report?

A field study report does not have a standard format; however, the following factors determined its structure and writing style:

• Nature of research problem
• Theoretical perspective that drives the analysis
• Observations made by researcher
• Specific guidelines established by your professor/supervisor

A field study report includes 6 main elements as follows:

1. Introduction

The introduction section should describe the objective and important theories or concepts underpinning your field study. More importantly, it should describe the organization’s nature or setting where you are conducting the observation—the types of observations conducted, the focus of your research study, what was observed, and which methods were used for collecting the data. Furthermore, it is important to include a review of pertinent literature .

2. Description of Activities

It becomes imperative for researchers to provide the information to the readers about what happened during the field study. Hence, you must include the details of all events that take place during your field research.

The description section helps in answering the five “WH” questions as mentioned below:

What did you see and hear in your area of study?

Where does the background information of the research setting is observed and reported?

Why are you conducting this field research?,

The reason behind particular thing happening , and

Why have you included or excluded specific information?

Who are the participants in terms of gender, age, ethnicity, and other relevant variables from your observation?

When is the study being conducted (day or time when occurring actions are observed and noted)?

3. Analysis and Interpretation

While you are on the field conducting the study, you are likely to observe multiple things. However, it is up to you as to which observations do you want to interpret and record in the report. This allows you to show the reader that you are interpreting events like an informed observer. Furthermore, your theoretical framework helps you in making this decision. The analysis and interpretation of your field observations must always be placed in the larger context of the theories described in the introduction.

Some questions to ask yourself when analyzing your observations are as follows:

• What is the meaning of your observations?
• What are the reasons behind the occurrence of the things you observed?
• How typical or widespread are the events and behaviors of the things you observed?
• Are there any connections or patterns in your observations?
• What are the implications of your observations?
• Did your observations match the objective of your study?
• What were the merits of your observations?
• What were the strengths and weaknesses of your recorded observations?
• Are there any connections between your findings and the findings from pertinent literature?
• Do your observations fit into the larger context of the study’s theories?

4. Conclusion and Recommendations

The conclusion of your field study report should summarize your report and emphasize the importance of your observations. This section has to be concise and relevant to your field study and must not include any new information. Furthermore, it is imperative to highlight any recommendations that you may have for readers to consider while conducting similar study. Additionally, describe any unanticipated problems you encountered and note the limitations of your study. Limit your conclusion to around two to three paragraphs.

5. References

The reference section must include every source that you referred to and used while writing your field study report. Since format for writing references may differ for every university, you must consult your professor to understand the format and write it accordingly.

6. Appendix

This section includes information that is not essential to explain your findings, but supports your analysis [especially repetitive or lengthy information]. It validates your conclusions and contextualize a related point. This helps the reader to understand the overall field study report.

6 Key Points to Consider While Writing a Field Study Report

A field study report focuses on factual and observational details of a project case. It must help the reader understand how theory applies to real-world scenarios. Hence, it should cover the circumstances and contributing factors to derive conclusive results from the observed and collated raw data.

Below are the key points to consider while writing a field study report:

1. Define the Objective of Your Field Report

• Ensure that you state the purpose of your field study report clearly.
• Determine the focus of your study and provide the relevant information.
• Define the setting of observations, and the methods used to collect data.

2. Construct a Theoretical Framework

• Creating a theoretical framework helps you in garnering information based on statistics, news, and pertinent literature for better understanding.
• Additionally, it guides you in determining the data that need to be analyzed and set as a baseline for comparison to acquire necessary information.

3. Record Study Observations and Analysis

• Take notes of your observations based on the defined scope of work (SOW).
• Furthermore, achieve and record the detailed plan on how to achieve the set objectives.

4. Include Photo Evidence of Observed Items

• Validate gathered raw data with photographs or videos as evidences.
• This increases the authenticity of your report and the conclusions you derive from it.

5. Record Overall Assessment and Recommendations

• Document all the observed aspects of your study based on gathered analysis and observations.
• Furthermore, clearly explain the observations and discuss the challenges and limitations faced by you while conducting the study.

6. Validate the Observations with a Signature

• After completing your research and documenting it, it is important to declare who is responsible for the reported data.
• Additionally, you must validate your findings in the field study report by signing off with a digital signature at the end of the report.

Did you every try writing a field study report? How difficult or easy was it? What methods do you follow while writing a field report? Let us know about it in the comments section below!

very well written….the enumeration is really commendable dear Bhosale…sweet regards from Nepal..

Very well explained and detailed. The information was relevant to my research. thanks

Wow…. Thank you I find this useful 🙏

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ACADEMIC FIELD TRIP REPORT

Related Papers

Iorhom Ernest

FIELDWORK REPORT

Kennedy R Rogoi

At the end of the first semester of third year, the department of history, political science and public administration organizes an academic trip for students to embark on a week long field trip where they visit several occupational environments with the aim of providing students with a visual experience of what is learn in class. Given the fact that students have been well grounded in the theoretical underpinnings, this course exposes them to site personnel, knowledge and practices. At the conclusion of the field trip, students are expected to submit a written report, which should be a descriptive and critical analysis of their experience. The fieldwork trip to Coast region was from 4th to 10th August, 2013. In attendance were two lectures, four drivers, and a hundred and twenty two students from Moi Main Campus, Moi KPA Campus and Moi West Campus. The department of history, political science and public administration is sub-divided into two fields of discipline: 1. political science and public administration, and 2. penology and correctional Detailed information is provided in the annexes. Aim: To provide students with an avenue for practical learning in the field Objectives At the end of the field trip, the student is expected to have achieved the following objectives: 1. To gain visual experience of what is learnt in class; 2. To provide students with an avenue for interaction with other professionals in the field so as to gain a hands-on experience in the field situation; 3. To gain experience in practical work performance; In chapter one I will highlight history of the stations; vision, mission, core values, goals and objectives; Organizational structure; Roles and functions of the organization. Chapter two highlight the roles of the institutions visited in resource management, service delivery and administrative systems. Chapter three highlights the experience I personally in the course of fieldwork. Chapter four I will express challenges faced as individual or group during the field course and suggest recommendations to improve the fieldwork course schedule.

Iis Duwi Hartati

Musa Yarima Umar

Jurnal Onoma: Pendidikan, Bahasa, dan Sastra

Andi Halmina

This study aims to improve the students writing description skills of class XI through the application of the field trip method located at Senior High School 3 Wajo. This research is Classroom Action Research (CAR), which is aimed to improve the quality of learning practices in the classroom. The collected data were analysed critically by comparing the results of the actions in each cycle. The results obtained from this study include: (1) the application of the field trip method can improve writing learning. This is indicated by the increased activeness, attention, concentration, interest, and motivation of students in learning to write descriptions. (2) the application of the field trip method can improve students&#39; ability to write descriptions. This is indicated by the increasing value of the students&#39; writing. In cycle I the lowest score of students was 59 and the highest score of students was 82, while in cycle II the lowest score of students was 64 and the highest score...

Francis Ibama

Hodal BIZIMUNGU

It is understandable that it is not enough for students to only acquire theoretical skills without practical skills which is very important for them to do practices in order to become familiar with the day to day working environment, where pressure, constraints and challenges faced are totally different from those found in classes. The internship comes to remove the gap between the theory acquired in classes and the practical skills needed at work. It is in this perspective that Universities academically organize one-month internship for their students in order to acquire practical skills which can help them in their respective careers. Within the view of fulfilling my academic requirements, I conducted one month of Internship at the Ministry of East African community (MINEAC) which is responsible for coordinating the EAC Activities.

FIELD WORK EXPERIENCE IN IKOM - EXPLORING URBAN TOURISM ELEMENTS IN THE 21st CENTURY

COCOBASSEY DANY

ABSTRACT The field work is to explore on the Urban Tourism Elements in the 21st century in Ikom local government area and its environment both potential and in real term. Sufficient data was collected, analyzed and tested. The instrument used for collecting information was structured questionnaire and personal interaction with certain respondents. Discussion of findings was based on the results obtained from the study. It is recommended that more tourism event should be organized in the resort to attract more tourists’ visits to the area, and that the people in the area should also be supported through the provision of training, seminars, credit facilities and the provision of basic social amenities in the host community to help enhance their interest and participation in tourism activities.

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Field trip programs as edu-tourism in university level were viewed as the great equalizer in terms of delivering students to cultural heritage awareness. So, they had seen these experiential learning as a central of educational mission. Higher level education especially university which implemented field trip programs as supporting activities in the English for tourism lesson was gladly endured the expense and disruption of providing field trips as the primary purpose to provide a learning opportunity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the implementation of educational field trips as edu-tourism at university level. This is a qualitative study which is carried out by survey and observation. The population of this study is the English Department students of Potensi Utama University. There were 150 respondents in this research which included of 50 teachers and 100 students were randomly selected. The instrument of this study used questionnaires and speaking test items. The questio...

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How to Write a Visit Report

Last Updated: March 30, 2024 References

This article was co-authored by Madison Boehm . Madison Boehm is a Business Advisor and the Co-Founder of Jaxson Maximus, a men’s salon and custom clothiers based in southern Florida. She specializes in business development, operations, and finance. Additionally, she has experience in the salon, clothing, and retail sectors. Madison holds a BBA in Entrepreneurship and Marketing from The University of Houston. This article has been viewed 646,678 times.

Whether you’re a student or a professional, a visit report helps you document the procedures and processes at an industrial or corporate location. These reports are fairly straightforward. Describe the site first and explain what you did while you were there. If required, reflect on what you learned during your visit. No additional research or information is needed.

Writing a Visit Report

Explain the site's purpose, operations, and what happened during the visit. Identify the site's strengths and weaknesses, along with your recommendations for improvement. Include relevant photos or diagrams to supplement your report.

Describing the Site

• Reports are usually only 2-3 pages long, but in some cases, these reports may be much longer.
• In some cases, you may be asked to give recommendations or opinions about the site. In other cases, you will be asked only to describe the site.
• Ask your boss or instructor for models of other visit reports. If you can't get a model, look up samples online.

• If you visited a factory, explain what it is producing and what equipment it uses.
• If you visited a construction site, describe what is being constructed and how far along the construction is. You should also describe the terrain of the site and the layout.
• If you’re visiting a business, describe what the business does. State which department or part of the business you visited.
• If you’re visiting a school, identify which grades they teach. Note how many students attend the school. Name the teachers whose classes you observed.

• Who did you talk to? What did they tell you?
• What did you see at the site?
• What events took place? Did you attend a seminar, Q&A session, or interview?
• Did you see any demonstrations of equipment or techniques?

• For example, at a car factory, describe whether the cars are made by robots or humans. Describe each step of the assembly line.
• If you're visiting a business, talk about different departments within the business. Describe their corporate structure and identify what programs they use to conduct their business.

Reflecting on Your Visit

• Is there something you didn’t realize before that you learned while at the site?
• Who at the site provided helpful information?
• What was your favorite part of the visit and why?

• For example, you might state that the factory uses the latest technology but point out that employees need more training to work with the new equipment.
• If there was anything important left out of the visit, state what it was. For example, maybe you were hoping to see the main factory floor or to talk to the manager.

• Tailor your recommendations to the organization or institution that owns the site. What is practical and reasonable for them to do to improve their site?
• Be specific. Don’t just say they need to improve infrastructure. State what type of equipment they need or give advice on how to improve employee morale.

Formatting Your Report

• If you are following a certain style guideline, like APA or Chicago style, make sure to format the title page according to the rules of the handbook.

• Don’t just say “the visit was interesting” or “I was bored.” Be specific when describing what you learned or saw.

Sample Visit Report

Community Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://services.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/471286/Site_Reports_for_Engineers_Update_051112.pdf
• ↑ https://www.examples.com/business/visit-report.html
• ↑ https://www.thepensters.com/blog/industrial-visit-report-writing/
• ↑ https://eclass.aueb.gr/modules/document/file.php/ME342/Report%20Drafting.pdf

About This Article

To write a visit report, start by including a general introduction that tells your audience where and when you visited, who your contact was, and how you got there. Once you have the introduction written out, take 1 to 2 paragraphs to describe the purpose of the site you visited, including details like the size and layout. If you visited a business, talk about what the business does and describe any specific departments you went to. Then, summarize what happened during your visit in chronological order. Make sure to include people you met and what they told you. Toward the end of your report, reflect on your visit by identifying any strengths and weaknesses in how the site operates and provide any recommendations for improvement. For more help, including how to format your report, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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FieldTrip Walkthrough

This walkthrough is intended to give a little background in the use of FieldTrip. It is not a manual, nor is it meant to be canonical or generic for all possible uses. I am making this from my limited experience as a user, not as a developer. Also, at the time of making this, many modifications on the code, both in detail as well as more substantive ones (e.g., a different implementation of data structure in its main functions) are planned. I do believe, however, that an absolute beginner might benefit from a bit of overview, especially those who want to end up using FieldTrip for frequency and time-locked (MEG) data-analysis within a cognitive paradigm in humans, from sensor to source level. It is meant to be read before one commences with the analysis as a background on which to explore the already detailed documentation available at the FieldTrip website. However, some experience in programming, and of MATLAB in particular, is definitely needed. I would like to refer to the MATLAB knowledge database on intranet for those that need help getting started (at the Donders Center). Finally, please see this attempt itself as experimental. Because of the fact that FieldTrip, from the developers point of view, is investing most of its efforts in innovation, a full manual will never be up to date, or even correct, at least not for long.

Happy FieldTripping, Stephen Whitmarsh

Trial based analysis

• Introduction

In most cases you would like to analyze your data in respect to stimulus/condition markers recorded within the data. Alternatively, you might want to define trials based upon visual inspection of the data, or based upon recordings of external device (eye-tracker, EOG, SCR, TMS, etc) or log file. For the sake of the purpose of overview only go into the first option although all these latter options are certainly supported in FieldTrip. If possible always record stimulus/condition markers in your EEG/MEG data. It will make the analysis, if not life itself, substantially easier. You might have coded every stimulus with its own code, or rather used the marker to code the condition number. In any case, most probably the first step you want to do is to load your data and segment it into conditions according to the markers in the data. In the end you’ll just need to find a nice test-statistic, e.g., average alpha-power, and do your statistical comparison:

• Data Structure in FieldTrip

First of all it is very important to get comfortable with the way FieldTrip manages the structure of your data. Although it might take a little getting used to, in many ways it is obvious and determined by the inherent structure of the data. EEG and MEG data is composed of many channels and many time points. Therefore it contains a sample, a single number representing microvolts or femtoteslas, for every Channel x Time point:

In Fieldtrip this is contained within in a single data matrix of [channels x timepoints], for instance:

For now you can ignore that fact that it is within a field called ‘trial’. At the moment there is only one trial so this is just to be able to generalize to the case then we have segmented the data into separate trials. So if you, for instance, want to refer to the 10th sample of the second channel, you might simply type

Note that the exact timing can’t be derived from the data itself. For that we need to know the sample rate (in samples per second, or Hertz). This is found in the data structure as an extra field called ‘fsample’. For example:

The representation of the data in terms of time is of course relative. In most cases only after defining trials will we be saying something like “at 0.5 seconds after stimulus”.

• Trial structure

If you are not familiar with MATLAB you might not know the difference between structure-arrays and cell-arrays since it is not very obvious. Superficially speaking, cell-arrays can contain almost anything and are just a convenient way of organizing, while structure-arrays are always numeric and of the same type. The benefits of structure-arrays are in the quick calculations you can do within them, while the benefit of cell-arrays is the easy way of indexing. Also in cell-arrays every entry can have different dimensions of the same field, for instance in our specific case of channels x time points. This is the reason it is implemented in the way since this give the opportunity to represent trials of different lengths.

Similar to how the inherent structure of the original data is represented in the first step described above, the trial structure is also implemented at the level of the data structure. This means that if you cut up your data into separate trials, the new structure of the data will reflect this. The added dimension of trials is represented in FieldTrip as a series of [channels x time] cell-arrays:

Looking at one trial separately gives us the familiar channels x time structure:

Most often every trial has the same time axis. e.g., they all go from one second before the marker until three second after the marker. This is not always the case however, and this is why every trial has its own time axis. It has the same length as the data, defining a (relative) time point in seconds for every sample in the data, for instance:

Where the trials were originally from, meaning the samples in the continuous data are found in data.sampleinfo. It has a simple two column format of a start and end sample number for every trial (on every row).

Finally, you might have extra information per trial about the specific condition to which the trial belongs, the response time, etc. How to include this information yourself will be explored next but for now it will suffice to say you can might find it in an extra field called trialinfo where every row contains some extra info for every trial. For example:

Trial bookkeeping, part I

At this point you might ask: “how does FieldTrip know which trials correspond to which condition?” Unlike perhaps other analysis packages, it doesn’t. You will have to do your own bookkeeping on that. How you want to do that, and indeed if you want to do that, will depend on how you want to undertake your analysis. Let’s take the simplest case of comparing the averages (or whatever) of two conditions. In FieldTrip this can be done in two ways:

• Doing the whole analysis separately for each condition (starting with preprocessing).
• Average over conditions
• Compare the averages
• Doing the whole analysis over all the trials at once.
• Split the trials belonging to each condition.

The main difference between the two approaches considering trial bookkeeping is that in the first case you do not need any trial bookkeeping – you simply only read and process the data you need separately for every conditions. The other option is to postpone the separation of trials into conditions. This would make sense in any trial-by-trial based analysis [sic] or just purely for the sake of keeping stuff together. We’ll start with the first step. The second is an extension of that one.

• Defining trials

Assuming we have marked our data file with codes representing conditions, we want to know how to segment the data relative to these markers. Note that although you might only be interested in the first second after the stimulus code, you might want to consider including a baseline period. Of course there are many other considerations. For the moment we will assume all trials to be of equal length and not to be overlapping.

So first of all we need to specify what marker codes belongs to what condition. We do that by creating two arrays of codes, one for every condition, e.g.

Then there is the timing we need to define. Let’s already put it in a cfg structure (more about the cfg structure later):

In addition, we need to specify where those markers are located. This will be different for every system.

Let’s now also add to the cfg the events as we specified them a moment before and - as we decided previously - one condition at a tim

Now, the last thing we need to do is to point to the datafile where to read the event markers from.

We can now call our first FieldTrip function

Notice that what is happening here is that a cfg structure is fed into ft_definetrial, which returns it again but with an added field called cfg.trl. This is a simple list of three columns where every row describes a separate trial start, end and offset (interval before the event) in sample numbers, relative to the event values we specified

This is all we need to load the appropriate data using ft_preprocessing, using the different stimulus events values to load every condition separately. You can jump ahead to preprocessing or stay for the next part where we will look at how to adapt our trial definition so we can still do some trial bookkeeping later on.

• Trial bookkeeping, part II

What makes ft_definetrial very flexible is that it uses a separate trial function you can customize to fit your specific requirements.

Within trialfun the trl is made according to specifications given through the cfg, as well as anything else you want to add. For instance, you might want to make trials dependent not only on the stimulus marker, but also on a correct response marker. This would be the place to do that. Also, sometimes you might be left with a rather awkward way of coding your conditions. This would also be the place to recode your trials and create a less ambiguous system. For the purpose of trial bookkeeping we only need to append one extra column (or more) to the standard three columns of the trl. Here we write information about the stimulus code, response time, condition numbers, etc. Next in ft_preprocessing (explained next) these extra columns will be put in an extra field of the data structure (trialinfo). This will enable us at any moment during our analysis to select trials based upon any arbitrary reason.

You are not obliged to make all trials the same length. Be careful though as you might end up in a statistical snake-pit later.

• Preprocessing

Preprocessing (ft_preprocessing.m) was the second main function implemented during FieldTrip’s development. As the name suggests it’s takes care of the first steps in processing your data. This means, including (but certainly not restricted to

• Loading the data into a FieldTrip data structure
• Rereferencing
• Cutting up your data into trials (if a trl is specified)
• Baseline correction
• Filtering (high, low, band pass and notch)

Besides loading the data all the other functionalities can be done at any later stage. They are not set by default. We’ll go through them in their own time and use ft_preprocessing only for the first two steps.

If we don’t specify the trial definition we made previously, ft_preprocessing would load all data and put them into a [channels x time] array of a single trial (e.g., in data.trial{1}). To save memory it is sometimes preferred to load only the data that is actually used, and you’ll need to segment the data into trials sooner or later anyway. To do so we supply ft_preprocessing with the trl we made previously. You might have everything you need already specified within the cfg, but just to be sure we’ll repeat it here:

What we end up with now is a datastructure called trialdata. See the previous ‘trialstructure’ on how the data it is organized. Please note here that all the info that was contained in the trl is now put in two different fields of the datastructure. The first two colums of the trl that described the start and end samples in the original data are now found in trialdata.sampleinfo. All the extra information for our trial bookkeeping that was put in extra columns of the trl are now found in trialdata.trialinfo.

Artifact rejection

Finding an appropriate approach to artifact rejection is not as simple as one might think. Every system, every experiment and even every subject will vary in number, magnitude and type of artifacts. Also, some researchers might be okay with just rejecting trials with any artifacts, some only if eye blinks come before a stimulus, while again others might want to correct for eye and movement artifacts by using an ICA approach. Furthermore, some artifacts, like spikes, might be easy to detect because of their signal properties, while others might be much harder to detect. For these reasons I believe one cannot do without visual inspection of the data. Only in very rare cases of very typical and well described artifacts, such as jumps from a specific MEG system, we think a full automatic artifact rejection is warranted. Besides all those rational considerations, manually going through your data early will also give you a certain ‘feeling’ of what your data is like.

Of course, in the end you would like to have certain standardized approach to your artifact rejection that will give you the best results possible. I don’t know if something like that exists and rather think everyone has his or her own personal preferences. Although seemingly rather time-consuming, I myself ended up with the following procedure. You need not follow it, it’s just a suggestion. It does give me the possibility of explaining some of the following steps in more detail. In particular it will explain a use of ft_databrowser, a recently added function which is not yet documented elsewhere.

• Visually inspect the dataset and mark those segments that contain obvious movements, (system) spikes or muscle artifacts, leaving in all but the most extreme eye artifacts.
• Reject the trials that contain artifacts.
• Decompose the data using ICA. Note that ICA can give very unreliable results when the data contains a lot of (correlated) noise. The cleaner the data is already, the better the ICA results.
• Find components clearly corresponding to eye blinks and saccades.
• Recompose data without those components.
• Go through data again visually and manually selects segments that still show any remaining artifacts, being from eye blinks, movements, etc.

I know this looks like a lot of work. However, it might pay off in the end when you are certain your data is clean and you do not have to go back to satisfy that slightly uneasy feeling that your results might ‘be all artifacts’. Of course they might still be, but at least you did everything you could.

• Visual data inspection

As most FieldTrip functions ft_databrowser needs a configuration structure and a data structure as input. First of all we can specify how to visualize the data:

We can also specify if we want to look at the data trial-by-trial, or if we want to treat it as continuous data. In the latter case we need to specify how large the time segments on display need to be in cfg.blocksize (in seconds

If we now call ‘‘cfg = ft_databrowser(cfg,data)’’, we are able to scroll through the data and select those segments containing muscle artifacts and the like. In the case you want to remove eye artifacts with ICA you can leave those in. If we now exit the databrowser by pressing ‘q’ our cfg is returned with an extra field containing a list of start and end samples for every data segment we selected

Note that ft_databrowser does not do anything with your data. To remove the trials that overlap with the segments we selected (and which are now in our cfg) and to save the remaining data in a new data structure we still need to use the function ft_rejectartifact:

You can extend the type of events you can mark by adding to cfg.selectvisual. You can also use the selection directly for something else by supplying an eval argument in cfg.selectmode. Use this to make topoplots or even movies!!!

• Using ICA for eye artifact removal

Severe contamination of EEG/MEG activity by eye movements, blinks, muscle, heart and line noise is a serious problem for its interpretation and analysis. Many methods exist to remove eye movement and blink artifacts. Simply rejecting contaminated epochs results in a considerable loss of collected information. Often regression in the time or frequency domain is performed on simultaneous electro-oculographic (EOG) recordings to derive parameters characterizing the appearance and spread of EOG artifacts in the other channels. However, EOG records also contain brain signals, so regressing out EOG activity inevitably involves subtracting a portion of the relevant brain-signal from each recording as well. Also, since many noise sources, include muscle noise, electrode noise and line noise, have no clear reference channels, regression methods cannot be used to removed them. ICA can effectively detect, separate and remove activity in EEG/MEG records from a wide variety of artifactual sources, with results comparing favorably to those obtained using regression- or PCA-based methods ( http://sccn.ucsd.edu/~scott/tutorial/ ).

First we need to decompose the data into independent components. The only thing we have to be sure of is that we only use the actual EEG or MEG channels and don’t use reference sensors or EOG:

The ICA will return as many components as you put channels in. Each component consists of a component timecourse for every trial (ic_data.trial) together with a single topography (ic_data.topo

When ft_componentanalysis is done (it could take a while) we have to find those components we want to subtract from our data. We’ll use ft_databrowser for this again, only looking at ten ‘channels’ (components) at a time:

Components are automatically sorted based upon on the sum of the weighting factors, commonly resulting in the most interesting components appearing on top. In the example below the first component is clearly an eye-blink because the appearance of an eye-blink in the time-course and the frontal topography. The second component is most probably related to eye movements for similar reasons. The fourth component is picking up the heartbeat. There is no reason to assume the third component to be artifactual.

To recompose the data without components 1, 2 and 4 use ft_rejectcomponent

Our data is quite clean now but I would recommend a last manual inspection on a trial by trial basis. It might happen that you missed some artifacts in the first run as it was only a rough scan for the benefit of the ICA. It might also very well be that the ICA failed for some reason, or that you skipped artifacts in the first run that you thought were eye-blinks but which were not removed in the end. Although you know the drill by now, here is the code:

Filtering your data will also get rid of some common artifacts, especially line noise - the 50 Hz ‘humming’ of the electric power supply and instruments connected to it. To clean up your data close around 50 Hz, and its harmonics at 100 and 150 Hz, you can use a band-stop filter. Add the following to your cfg before you run ft_preprocessing the first time (on page 9):

If you are doing an event-related-potential (ERP) study you might not even be interested in higher frequencies. Indeed, doing a low-pass filter on your data will make your ERP’s look much smoother. By adding the following before running preprocessing you will be left with data only composed of frequencies below that of the specified cut-off frequency. Note, however, that you are throwing away a lot of data. These higher frequencies might be very useful to detect for instance movement artifacts or to compute accurate independent components for eye-blink correction. Using the band-pass filter in this way therefore is better done after you did all your other previous methods of artifact rejection. This brings us to a slightly different use of ft_preprocessing where we supply it data instead of letting it read from disk. For instance, continuing with the data from the previous page, we could do the following:

Want to know exactly how digital filters work? Want to intuitively grasp the FFT? You might enjoy reading the great “The Scientist and Engineers’s Guide to Digital Signal Processing”, free on www.dspguide.com

Frequency analysis

• Calculating spectral estimates

Ft_freqanalysis supports many approaches to spectral calculations. You might be going back and forth between using different methods, what, when and how many tapers to use, choosing different time-frequency windows, etc. We’ll discuss two main approaches: doing a FFT on the whole trial at once and using a sliding time-window. After that the most common features will be explained one by one. At worst you will have heard about them once more again. At best you’ll have a little bit more grip and overview on their use. Let’s begin with the catch: every signal in the time domain can be described in the frequency domain and vice-versa - although doing so does not always make much sense. The translation from one domain to the other is done using a variation of the (inverse) Fourier transform. FieldTrip combines all its calculations from the time to the frequency domain in the function ft_freqanalysis. It will result in a data structure that has to be able to contain not just channels x time for every trial, but now also has to add frequency as a dimension:

• Power per trial

In the simplest case you are interested in the power of certain frequencies (frequencies of interest: cfg.foi) of the whole trial. This is done by using ‘mtmfft’ as the method:

Note that in cfg.foi we are now specifying a list of frequencies with steps of 1 Hz. It is also possible to specify a range (cfg.foilim = [1 30];) which will output an average power over these frequencies, or to take different size “steps” (cfg.foi = [1:2:30];).

• Power changes over time

The most used method for frequency analysis in FieldTrip besides ‘‘mtmfft’’ is ‘‘mtmconvol’’. There are two main differences between the two. First, ‘‘mtmfft’’ gives the average frequency-content of your trial, whereas ‘‘mtmconvol’’ gives the time-frequency representation of your trial, i.e. how the frequency content of your trial changes over time. Second, they differ in their implementation. Below a short description:

'’Mtmfft’’ consists of 2 main steps.

• Your raw data is windowed/tapered by a taper you selected in cfg.taper (e.g., hanning, dpss, etc.). This is important for various reasons explained in the next section.
• the Fast-Fourier-Fransform (FFT) of your data is taken, and parts of this are selected as output.

'’Mtmconvol’’ works a little differently. One of several methods to get a time-frequency representation of your data is by using wavelet-convolution, where a wavelet is ‘sliding’ over your raw data, at each time-point taking the average of a element-wise multiplication of all the data that ‘lies under’ your wavelet. ‘‘Mtmconvol’’ does exactly this, but then by multiplication in the frequency domain (which is much faster than convolution in the time-domain).

• Wavelets are created, the length determined by ‘‘cfg.tf_timwin’’, with 1 wavelet per frequency.
• Wavelet is windowed/tapered similarly as step 1 in ‘‘mtmfft’’.
• The Fast-Fourier-Transform is taken of both your raw data and your wavelet and multiplied with each other (for each frequency).
• The inverse Fourier-transform is taken, and parts of this are selected as output.

Sliding time windows

If you are interested in the development of the power (or other frequency information beyond the scope of this document) over time, you need to cut up the time course into pieces and calculate the power for every piece separately

However, because of the straight edges of the time window spectral leakage will occur (something you do not want). It is therefore recommended make the edges of the time window taper off to zero by for instance multiplying the time course with an inverted cosine function. This is called a Hanning window:

As you can see using such a taper will make you lose data between the time windows. This is compensated by using an overlapping time window, providing the average power of the time-window centered at multiple time-points. Note that although you sample in much smaller steps, the value for every window is still calculated for the whole time window:

One consideration in choosing the width of your time-window is the wavelength of the frequency you want to calculate. As we view an oscillation as consisting of several cycles, this needs to be reflected in the time-window. Also, you need several cycles captured in your time-window to have a relative reliable estimate of its power during that time. This means that for a signal of 2 Hz the time window should be several times 0.5 seconds (T = 1/f). For higher frequencies this can be much shorter, 30Hz giving you a period of about 33 milliseconds. To not make concessions for one or the other extreme you can make your time-windows dependent on the frequency by making it a multiple of its period. It is recommended to not use less than 3 cycles. Remember, the way you define your window biases your results towards that particular view. If you are searching for long-lasting oscillations and therefore use time-windows of e.g., 10 cycles, your results will reflect that portion of your data most strongly. If, instead, you use a window of 1 cycle, do not expect to see (although you might) oscillations evolving over time, as you are biasing your results against it.

To summarize let’s look at the different parameters that have to be set for doing a frequency analysis with a sliding, frequency dependant, time window, using a Hanning taper and then call ‘‘ft_freqanalysis’’ on one dataset:

Selecting trials using .trialinfo

By default ‘‘ft_freqanalysis’’ (and as we will see, also ‘‘ft_timelockanalysis’’) will not retain information on separate trials but will output the average frequency information (power in this case) over all trials. Also for reasons of memory and speed this might be a good moment to separate your trials into conditions and do a frequency analysis for every condition separately. You can select the trials on which to do ‘‘ft_freqanalysis’’ or ‘‘ft_timelockanalysis’’ by specifying trial indexes in ‘‘cfg.trials’’. The trial index is nothing more than a number pointing to the n-th trial in the data structure. Since we have all the information about the conditions that the trials belong to stored in the ‘‘.trialinfo’’ field, we can search through it to make such a list. Remember we already made a list of trial codes belonging to our two conditions (markersA & markersB). We’ll just search through our ‘‘.trialinfo’’ looking for those trials that match those code

We can now add the following line to the cfg:

However, if you want to save trials separately you can specify the following option:

Output of ft_freqanalysis

We might go further into the output of ft_freqanalysis in a future release of this document but for now it suffices to say it gives a datastructure as output similar as the input structure but now with the field ‘‘.powspctrm’’ instead of ‘‘.trial’’ or ‘‘.avg.trial’’. For further information see timefrequencyanalysis and plotting .

FieldTrip distinguishes itself perhaps most in its flexibility in statistical approaches. In a similar way as with ft_definetrial and ft_freqanalysis, ft_timelockedstatistics and ft_freqstatistics call auxiliary functions to calculate the different statistics. Don’t be afraid though – most users won’t need to go nitty-gritty and go through those functions. As an end user needs to understand most of all it:

• The difference between descriptive and inferential statistics
• The common structure for the input to - and output from - ft_freqstatistics
• Descriptive & inferential statistic

The difference between descriptive and inferential statistic is often implicit in neuroimaging analysis packages, or in research articles for that matter. It really pays off to consider them separately here and to entertain the many possibilities of combining descriptive statistics with statistical methods. It is paramount in understanding the philosophy and appreciating the full statistical potential of FieldTrip.

So what do we mean with descriptive statistic? It’s the single value you end up with after reducing your data(set) and representing an aspect of its distribution which you would want to use for statistical comparison. Think for instance about “average alpha power over trials”, “variance of the P300 amplitude” or “the latency of maximal mu-rhythm suppression”. You might calculate a descriptive statistic for every subject, e.g., the difference between conditions (which you want to compare over subjects). Conversely, you might want to use one descriptive for every trial (which you will compare within a subject). A descriptive statistic is not limited to averages of power or amplitude but can be any output of a statistical procedure itself, such as a Z-value, t-value, variance, mean-difference or Beta-value. The inferential statistic is what you get when you test your descriptive statistics against the null-hypothesis, e.g., is your p-value. Again, there are many ways to do your null-hypothesis testing, e.g., using a (paired) t-test or Monte Carlo approach.

• Input – output structure of ft_freqstatistics

Also when it comes to your statistical analysis FieldTrip doesn’t let you down: The structure of its output is consistent with the data structure of its input. We will revisit the following figure a couple of times, but for now please notice:

• Unless you specify otherwise through averaging on a certain dimension, the structure of the output will have the same structure as the input
• Those values of the output – the descriptive statistics, the inferential statistics and the decisions (to reject your null-hypothesis), are dependent on cfg.statistic, cfg.method and cfg.alpha, respectively.
• That we need to specify a design matrix – our next topic

Input - data and your design matrix

It should be obvious that besides feeding data we need to specify how the separate data entries should be treated – which belong to the same condition for instance. What is common to all designs is that data entries are always assumed to be in a row. In the simplest case we only need to specify a code corresponding to the independent variable for every data entry. Note the use of the parameters ivar and uvar. They denote nothing more than the row-number in the design-matrix to find either your independent variables (ivar) or units of observation (uvar).

• Non-paired comparison

This could be simply the condition number as we have in the case of a (non-paired) comparison of two series of data entries. Note that this is the same regardless if we are dealing with a within-subject (e.g., condition A versus B) or a between-subject design (e.g., group A versus B, session A versus B):

• Paired comparison

Besides a row coding for the independent variable such as your experimental condition (the first row, therefore: cfg.ivar = 1;), we can code for every dependant variable, or unit of observation in the second row (uvar = 2); The units of observation often are subjects (in a certain group) or trials (of a certain condition), for instance. This allows us to do a paired comparison. The example below is just an example, there is no necessity to have such an organized design, as long as you make sure every n-th column corresponds to the appropriate n-th data entry.

• Correlation

You might not want to test groups but rather calculate a correlation with any other series of values. These could be reaction times, a subject score on a questionnaire or even power in another frequency. Your design then will only have to specify those in a single row. For the example below we’ll just make an imaginary [sic] array of values.

• Averaging over time/frequencies/sensors

As you are well aware, however, the decision we make using the statistical test (not to be confused with the test-statistic) is vulnerable to the multiple comparison problem, a problem that is greatly exacerbated with the multidimensional nature of psychophysiological data. One way of dealing with this problem is simply to average over (parts of) a dimension. Doing this now, instead of earlier during ft_preprocessing, ft_freqanalysis or ft_timelockanalysis gives us all the flexibility to explore different windows on which to calculate our test statistic (“average power of…”, or “average amplitude of…”). Remember how we showed in the previous page to specify a time-frequency window or select channels. We can simply average over one of these dimensions as follows:

Statistical methods

Once the design matrix is specified and the test statistic is defined we only need to decide how we are going to test our hypothesis. Of course the statistical methods one will use are somewhat dependent on the design matrix you specified but let’s just summarize them all here:

• ft_statistics_analytic
• ft_statistics_crossvalidate
• ft_statistics_montecarlo
• ft_statistics_stats
• Calling ft_freqanalysis