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Select Your Social Scientist with Care

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Ray Wyatt
Ray Wyatt
Affiliation:
School of Environmental Planning, University of Melbourne
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Abstract

A public policy-oriented research project in Australia is used to point out the connections between typical social science motivations, such as moral criticism, truth-seeking and policy-guidance, and the research styles which such motivations produce, such as advocacy, impracticality and expediency. Each style's reliability, fundamentalism and policy applicability are discussed and suggestions are made for testing research validity. Finally, it is shown how policy makers can interpret advice from the different sorts of social scientist more intelligently.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , February 1984 , pp. 57 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

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