Chapter Two. Paradigms, Theory, and Social Research
INDUCTIVE THEORY CONSTRUCTION
An Example of Inductive
Theory: Why Do People Smoke Marijuana?
This section will bring
you closer to the process of inductive logic. The question
addressed in the chief example of this section has to do with the reasons
why some college students smoke marijuana and others do not. You'll
be presented with a set of observations in the form of a student survey:
relating marijuana use to gender, living arrangements, home town, and ethnicity.
Your job will be to discover the general pattern that brings these several
variables together logically.