ABSTRACT

The proper task of the concluding chapter is not so much to summarize what has gone before as to develop perspective on the entire effort. The burdensome details of the findings have been spelled out, listed, and organized; precious little summarization is feasible beyond what the reader already has encountered. Now the job is to look less closely at the study so that the forest can be seen as well as the trees, so that a range of principles—not just peaks of empiricism—may be discerned. It is a further duty to evaluate the research past so that a more productive research future can be projected.