ABSTRACT
This chapter presents one new strategy of quantitative analysis that facilitates the generation of theory from quantitative data. It is a variation of Paul F. Lazarsfeld's elaboration analysis of survey data. Lazarsfeld's elaboration analysis is seldom used in research, except for the simple task of specifying the conditions of a finding; for this task, one need not understand or expressly use his formula. Quantitative data is so closely associated with the emphasis on verification that its possibilities for generating theory have been left vastly underdeveloped. However, some of our best monographs based on quantitative data indicate that they can be a very rich medium for discovering theory. Theoretical analysis of quantitative data is, of course, an opportunity to be taken by many sociologists other than study directors or their assistants, and so most generation of theory from quantitative data will be based on secondary analysis.
