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The first issue is primarily related to the question of reliable data collection, aswell as to those steps in the research process which precede it. It is for thisreason that we have stressed in the preceding chapters, that the researchprocess ought to be regarded as an integrated whole. The reliability ofobservations is directly related to the validity of the theory that is used and themanner in which a study has been operationalized. This is clearly illustrated inthe example of the Reiger Park incident. The theory that was used played animportant part in the data collection as it sensitized the researchers to therelevant data categories. If further research were to have shown that the theorywas in fact invalid, it would clearly also have had far-reaching implications forany subsequent set of data collected on the basis of the theory.The second question is one that is not often posed in methodology texts. Evenif one were to accept that the data were sufficiently reliable, the possibilityremains that the data may not provide adequate support for the conclusionsbased on them. There is, for example, a possibility that other interpretations ofthe same events may be advanced. An outsider may well be inclined to say thatan alternative interpretation, to the effect that the incidents were simply raceriots, had not been adequately refuted.It is, however, important to bear in mind that all conclusions that are reachedon the basis of collected data, always involve logical inference. The questionthat has to be posed is whether the inferences that are drawn, and whether theconclusions that are reached, are valid. The methodological criterion thatapplies in this case, and the subject of this chapter, is inferential validity.Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.zaA few remarks on analysisWe have deliberately decided not to pay detailed attention to the process ofanalysis in this chapter. We focus on the inferential validity of theinterpretation phase — the final stage in which the researcher presents his orher conclusions or explanations of the phenomenon. One of the reasons for nothaving treated analysis as a separate issue, is related to the example which hasbeen discussed. When data analysis is conducted in studies that are highlystructured — the type of study in which the course of the research is largelydirected by a given frame of reference — analysis is less of a problem. In suchcases the validity of the analysis depends upon the validity of the frameworkthat is used.The second reason for not paying detailed attention to the issue of dataanalysis, follows from the extremely sophisticated statistical techniques thatare employed in quantitative research in the social sciences. The developmentsin the fields of descriptive techniques and quantitative analysis have providedresearchers with a wide variety of analytical techniques. Developments in thefield of computer technology have also resulted in a situation where not onlyfairly simple univariate techniques are accessible, but where complicated105