Charlotte, a nursery school student, hypothesizes that boys have fights with the finger paints more than girls do. She tests her hypothesis by casually watching the finger-painting table for three days of nursery school. What method is she using?

(D) naturalistic observation

Charlotte is using naturalistic observation. As a student herself, she can observe the fingerpainting table unobtrusively. She does not interact with the finger painters; she merely observes. Since Charlotte does not manipulate an independent variable nor attempt to control any aspect of her study, she is not using any kind of experiment. She did not ask the participants questions as she would have if she were conducting a survey. She did not focus on a single participant or a small group of participants as she would have if she had been interested in putting together a case study. Finally, Charlotte has not conducted ethnographic research. Ethnography is a type of research in which the researcher immerses himself or herself in another culture and then describes it. Ethnography is a method most commonly employed by anthropologists.