Contents

338 PART IV: Applied Research(efficiency evaluation) are necessary if we want to make informed decisionsabout continuing the program, how to improve it, whether to try an alternativeprogram, or whether to cut back on the program’s services.Earlier in this chapter and in Chapter 2 we described differences between basicand applied research. Program evaluation is perhaps the extreme case of appliedresearch. The purpose of program evaluation is practical, not theoretical. Nevertheless,even in the context of blatantly practical goals, a case can be made fora reciprocal relationship between basic and applied research (see Box 10.1). Onesuch model of this relationship is illustrated in Figure 10.7. The idea is that eachdomain of research serves the other in an ongoing circular way. Specifically, basicresearch provides us with certain abstractions (e.g., scientifically based principles)that express certain regularities in nature. When these principles are examined inthe complex and “dirty” world where they supposedly apply, new complexitiesare recognized and new hypotheses are called for. These new complexities arethen tested and evaluated in the lab before being tried out again in the real world.The work of Ellen Langer serves as a concrete example of this circular relationship(see Salomon, 1987). She identified a decline in elderly people’s healthonce they entered nursing homes (see Langer, 1989; Langer & Rodin, 1976,described in this chapter). These naturalistic observations led her to developa theory of mindfulness, which she has tested under controlled experimentalconditions and which has implications for more general theories of cognitivedevelopment and of education (see, for example, Langer, 1989, 1997; Langer &Piper, 1987). The theory provides a guide for her applied work—designing newmodels of nursing homes. Tests of the practical effects of changes in the careFIGURE 10.7Model illustrating reciprocal relationship between basic and applied research.(From Salomon, 1987, p. 444.)AppliedResearchAffects andmodifiesLeads toDeductiveTheoryHuman and SocialWorldGuidesBasicResearchInterprets andexplains