i'm conducting a field observation for my sociology class. my location
for this observation is an inner city gas station. i need statistics
on what time different cultures, sexes, and ages buy their gas; what
color and brand of cars they are most likely to be driving; and what
kind of gas these
"different" persons are more prone to purchase.

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Request for Question Clarification by angy-ga on 21 Oct 2002 20:43 PDT

Where are you? Statistics from a completely different area may not
make a valid comparison to your own data.

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Clarification of Question by brokenrecord84-ga on 21 Oct 2002 21:14 PDT

i'm in chicago.  i wish i could have a suburban perspective...but oh
well.  how do i get my money back?

Is your question about giving us this data, and letting us do the
statistics for you?  Or do you merely want helpful resources that will
be of use to you in this project?

By "field observation", I'm assuming that you cannot just collect this
information off of the internet - because, of course, that wouldn't be
a field observation.
If you want someone else to collect your data for you, (i.e. go to a
gas station and record this information for you), please be aware that
this will violate the integrity of your study.. different researchers
may record times or ethnicities differently than you would.

-Rebekah

i am going to record these statistics myself, but i also want another
person's data on top of my own; for comparing and contrasting
purposes.  i also wanted to know some sociological terms and ideas
that i could point out in my essay.  i'm planning on making my own
observations, but i feel the need to have another observer's opinion
that will provide even more information for my paper.

I did a similar exercise in my second year (university) sociology
class, except the topic for my class was body piercing. Does your
teacher actually expect you to include more data than what you
yourself collect, or are you thinking it will give you more of an
'edge' if you do so? You're never going to do a proper, far reaching
study on your own, and your teacher obviously doesn't expect this of
you. I'd concentrate on getting as much out of the data as you can,
rather than on trying to find extra sources of data.

what do you suggest i do to get my money's worth out of this?

Hi there -

Since you're in school in Chicago, I'm assuming you have access to
some of the major databases in sociology - my suggestion would be to
search Sociological Abstracts for published case studies of gas
station use.  You never know, there might be something there.  You
could also look for general information on sociological patterns of
inner-city people - like the differences between people who live there
vs. the ones who work there, which could get into other issues like
who owns cars in the inner city (and thus would need to fill them up).
At this point (and half of me hates to say this while the other half
rejoices) your best bet may be to go to your college/university
library and see what resources you have on campus (or remotely) to
help you with your class.  You'd be shocked at what we reference
librarians can come up with if you stand and really explain what you
need from us.  :)

librariankt