ABSTRACT
The objective of theory-building research is to contribute to the development of theory by formulating new propositions based on the evidence drawn from observation of instances of the object of study. A theory-building study might start from a strictly descriptive aim of discovering and describing concepts that might later become relevant for a theory. Propositions can be built by exploration and by theory-building research. In theory-testing, the concepts of a proposition are operationalized in procedures that specify how they can be validly and reliably measured. The same kind of reasoning as applied here to the measurement of concepts applies to the type of relations between concepts that is discovered in the study. If a proposition is developed in theory-building research, it should be demonstrated that proposition is true in the instances from which scores were obtained. The outcome of a successful theory-building study usually consists of one or more new propositions that also have been put to an initial test.
