Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia. Using an observation-centered approach to studying Tertian culture, he concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village rather than

Number of anthropologists recommended that research on the subject of Tertian child-rearing practices should be conducted via the interview-centered method rather than using the observation-centered method. This recommendation was based on the assumption that conclusions made by Dr.Karp contradict previous conclusions made by another anthropologist, Dr. Field. Yet, in order to support this recommendation, there are number of questions which should be addressed before applying only the interview-centered method.

The first question which comes in mind is whether the interview-centered method collect ALL of the data that an observation-centered approach can? If the answer to this question is negative, then the recommendation may have a great way to save money and time, however the cost will be in making the wrong conclusions based on partial information. For example, even if Dr.Karp is right regarding the important role of the biological parents in raising their children, we couldn't have known only by Q&A that the entire village also has an important part in the children life as it was found via observations.

Another question which should be addressed is whether the recommandors made their conclusion only based on this two incidents or whether they received similar reporting from researchers in other communities? Changing recommendations for data collection method based only on one/two incidents, may be a littel to hasty. Especially when the recommendation is to "give up" one method and use only one. However, if the recommenders received information regarding a change in research conclusions after a change in same data collection methods in other communities, this may lead to a pattern.

In conclusion, the anthropologist's recommendation has an important implication on future research on the Tertian community. It is much important to make sure that their recommendation would be made only after a deep investigation.