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flict with a point of view in which it is maintained that people have free will toexercise choices, for the simple reason that it is not accepted that allprostitution is caused by peer group pressure.Explanatory research therefore also includes research of an unstructured andqualitative nature. Explanations of human behaviour in terms of motives,intentions, reasons, or goals are also valid causal explanations. In a similarmanner, causal explanations are employed in historical analysis. The reasonsfor the Voortrekkers having wished to leave the Eastern Cape that arecontained in Piet Retief’s Manifesto may justifiably be regarded as one of theconsiderations which led to this historical event. The fact that an explanation ofthis nature may not be universally valid, does not lead to its being a lessacceptable explanation.In conclusion, attention should be paid to the fact that combinations ofdifferent research goals are, naturally, possible. A given project may be bothdescriptive and explanatory, or it could begin as an exploratory study andeventually develop into a descriptive study.In this discussion of the different types of research goals, the whole question ofthe associated research strategy has also begun to emerge. Because there is aclose link between the choice of a research goal and the choice of a researchstrategy, we now turn our attention to the latter. Following this, we shall payattention to considerations that bear upon the issue of validity.Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.zaResearch strategySince 1894 when Wilhelm Windelband proposed the distinction betweennomothetic and ideographic research strategies or methodologies, it hasbecome customary to classify social sciences research into one thesecategories. It may be useful to take a look at exactly what Windelband said.The most lucid description of this distinction is to be found in the followingstatement:In their quest for knowledge of reality, the empirical sciences either seekthe general in the form of the law of nature or the particular in the form ofthe historically defined structure. On the one hand, they are concerned withthe form which invariably remains constant. On the other hand, they areconcerned with the unique, immanently defined content of the real event.The former disciplines are nomological sciences. The latter disciplines aresciences of process or sciences of the event... If I may be permitted tointroduce some new technical terms, scientific thought is nomothetic in theformer case and ideographic in the latter case (1980: 175).Throughout his discussion, Windelband emphasizes that the classificationwhich he proposes is a methodological classification, and that it does not relateto a classification of the scientific content as such. As he notes, the same48