ABSTRACT
Research does not end with the collection of data. By themselves, data are merely numbers, sets of observation notes, or interview transcripts; to be useful, these numbers, notes, and transcripts must be imbued with meaning, they must be transformed from data into knowledge. The process of infusing data with meaning is referred to as inference; Figure 17.1 illustrates the steps in this process. If the fi gure looks familiar, that is because it was also part of Figure 5.4, which illustrated the process of developing a hypothesis. In hypothesis development, we go down the ladder of inference, using deduction to derive specifi c and concrete predictions about the effects of independent variables from a general and abstract theory. When interpreting the results of the research, we use induction to go up the ladder from the specifi c and concrete results to their meaning for the general and abstract theory.
