ABSTRACT
There are several systematic accounts available of the logic of explanation which demonstrate the connections between theory and research. The hypothetico-deductive approach briefly discussed above suggests that social science progresses by testing empirically deductions made from universal statements and specific initial conditions, and using the results of the test to verify or falsify the original theory. The practice of research seems to involve a more active interplay of theory and data than this model allows. The origin of hypotheses in conjecture is left unexplicated, yet this is crucial for the fruitfulness of the development of research. In sociology the state of theoretical development is such that research is very largely inductive, and much research activity consists of making inductive inferences from data. A number of accounts of the craft of social research, notably those contained in Phillip Hammond's collection Sociologists at Work, emphasise the extent to which there is continual interplay between theory and method.
