The policy orientation

Abstract

Between the two world wars, American social and psychological sciences emphasized the improvements of method, especially quantitative method. There resulted a general raising of the level of competence in the making of primary observations and in the processing of data. Recently there is a tendency to take method more for granted and to put the accent upon applying method to problems that promise to make a contribution to policy. We can think of the policy sciences as the disciplines concerned with explaining the policy-making and policy executing process, and with locating data and providing interpretations which are relevant to the policy problems of a given period. The policy approach does not imply that energy is to be dissipated on a miscellany of merely topical issues, but rather that fundamental and often neglected problems which arise in the adjustment of man in society are to be dealt with. The policy approach does not mean that the scientist abandons objectivity in gathering or interpreting data, or ceases to perfect his tools of inquiry. The policy emphasis calls for the choice of problems which will contribute to the goal values of the scientist, and the use of scrupulous objectivity and maximum technical ingenuity in executing the projects undertaken.