Searching for the Unknowable: A Process of Detection — Abductive Research Generated by Projective Techniques

Abstract

This article looks at the process of doing research ‘from scratch'. The author began a project investigating children of Ethiopian origin living in Israel to see how ones who attended a kindergartern program years earlier differed from those who had not attended. However, the problem from the outset was that there may not be a difference to find. In this article, the author compares inductive, deductive, and abductive reasoning, and argues that abductive reasoning is the proper technique when nothing is known about the research at the outset.