ABSTRACT
Experimentation with research techniques in the social sciences needs to be carried to still a further level. What is needed is a demonstration of the conjoint use of all techniques in relation to a single problem or situation. (A combined approach of this sort might, of course, include techniques not discussed in this volume, for example, the questionnaire.) Each technique will presumably reveal a different quality of fact ; moreover, each separate technique may reveal a varying quality of fact when used by different investigators. The statistician may not be an adept at interviewing, and the person who is proficient in observing may lack the skills necessary for charting. But, if six investigators, all attempting to study a single situation in terms of an accepted set of analytical categories, were to function co-operatively, each separate skill would supplement the other and the net result would be a set of facts and interpretations immediately usable for purposes of social change. Dynamic social research is based upon the assumption that fact-finding should lead to action. Its major premise is that meaningful social action based upon knowledge will follow when social research is founded upon an inclusive epistemology and an experimental logic, that is, when its facts fall into a relativistic scale which bears some resemblance to life itself.
