Induction

Induction is a label given to the logical process whereby new concepts or conclusions arise from the inspection of evidence (compared with a deductive approach where evidence is collected to test an existing chain of logic). Discovery approaches to research rely on inductive processes, whereas confirmatory forms of research are based on deductive logic.

The process of coming to firm generalisation by induction is recognised to be a logically incomplete process (especially since Karl Popper published The Logic of Scientific Discovery). No sampling of a population and observing a particular outcome offers logical grounds for assuming the outcome must always occur. Our conceptualisations of data are never exhaustive - it is always possible for other interpretations to put upon our data.

A key issue with induction is the origin of the new concepts we form to make sense of data - which just seem to emerge in our thinking, i.e. be the outcomes of creative mental processes. Researchers need to employ some form of post-inductive resonance to check the extent to which such insights effectively fit their data. In grounded theory methodology, a process referred to as constant comparison is employed for this purpose.

“Induction is……an instrument for question-resolution in the face of imperfect information. It is a tool for use by finite intelligences, capable of yielding not the best possible answer (in some rarified sense of this term), but the best available answer, the best we can manage to secure in the existing conditions in which we do and must conduct our epistemic labors.” (Rescher, 1980: 7)

Rescher, N. (1980). Induction: An essay on the justification of inductive reasoning. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

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