ABSTRACT
The conventional definitions of research separate basic and applied, conclusion-orientated and decision-orientated, hypothesis-testing and hypothesis-seeking, suggesting that there is a division which would justify the different status accorded to the academic and the practical. Evidence that is subject to public debate is only the tip of the total research enterprise. Some research fizzles out, some is never written up, some is never published and some is fed direct into industry or government. Academic journals contain the results of behavioural scientists beavering away to produce evidence for other behavioural scientists. Much of this academic work would be incomprehensible and irrelevant to the lay reader. It focuses where these academic and practical strands cross that public attention. But research in the behavioural sciences remains an exercise for the activist. Behavioural science has flourished on a promise to provide reliable evidence. The social effects of comprehensive schooling seemed to have been taken on trust until demolished by the case studies.
