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that they have tradition, culture, and hope or, stated differently, that theypossess an historical consciousness.It follows from both the preceding that humans are normative beings. They donot merely behave in a reasoned manner, but reasoned in terms of what theyregard as desirable and proper. Human beings behave in accordance with theirvalue orientations, their norms concerning what is perceived as right andwrong. These are dimensions of human existence that also grow and changehistorically, and which are subject to human development.The implications of these aspects of human existence are far-reaching whenhuman beings participate in scientific investigation. Human behaviour isneither static nor predetermined, and patterns of behaviour tend to vary overtime. In an important sense, individuals are unique beings: each with their ownset of value-orientations, own preferences and norms, own wishes and desires,and unique convictions and ideals. In the following discussion on themethodological considerations which apply in the data collection process, themanner in which these aspects of human existence pose some of the mostimportant threats to the validity of research findings, will become clear.Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.zaSOURCES OF DATA, REACTIVITY AND CONTROLQuite different from the situation in the physical and earth sciences, and on amuch larger scale than in the biological sciences, the participants in research inthe social sciences are, to a greater or lesser extent, aware of the fact that theyare being studied. Depending upon the nature of the particular source of data,and the manner in which the data are collected, human beings, when theyparticipate in research, are aware of this situation, and tend to react to it. In theliterature on methodology, this phenomenon has been known as reactivity sincethe publication by Campbell (1957). We shall employ this term in a broadsense in this section to indicate the phenomenon that human beings react to thefact that they are participants of research. This reaction appears in a variety offorms, for example, resistance to being interviewed or to completingquestionnaires, supplying inaccurate information as a result of apathy,willfulness, modifying behaviour or information with the aim of creating abetter impression, or deliberately misinforming the researcher. We shalldiscuss the different manifestations of human reactivity in the process of datacollection in the following section. It is, however, important to take note of thefact that reactivity is an important variable, depending upon the nature of thesource of data.Following Manheim’s (1977) scheme, it is possible to divide sources of data inthe social sciences into two main categories with two subcategories in each.(1) Human behaviour and human characteristics.(2) Products of human behaviour and of human characteristics.76