It appears that the greatest research pay-off, for social scientists working within institutional or community programs, has come when the worker has become sufficiently immersed in the lore of the program to get a feeling of what is "problematical" both for the program personnel and for himself. This takes time and it frequently entails a good deal of muddling along. The young research worker needs to have access to senior persons in his own discipline. He needs to feel that his career line is a respectable one in the eyes of his peers and he must therefore beam some of his research contributions toward the general public of his discipline.

Few new Ph.D.'s are possessed of real sophistication in research. Most badly need a period of apprenticeship, but with our demand for research personnel only a minority secure such an apprenticeship. This makes it doubly important that we avoid magical thinking about research.

We must not expect the answer to basic questions of administrative policy in a single study. We must remember that in a sense each community or school system affords only a single observation for research on administrative arrangements. It may take a dozen studies or it may take a hundred to begin to close in on some of the answers to our persistent questions. Research on human behavior takes longer and costs more than laboratory studies. Being subject to more uncontrolled variables, which will influence the generality of findings, studies of human behavior are less likely to "add up" than are laboratory studies. Yet it is probably safe to say that 99 out of 100 laboratory studies add only a single small fragment to systematic knowledge. The "breakthroughs" come only one to a million studies.

Let me say just a bit about the need for a range of kinds of research. I dislike intensely the false distinction between basic and applied research, but since the distinction is constantly made, let me say that we need both. In the field of human behavior, it is my conviction that the best basic research has to do with problems of the real world.

In the long run, it is likely, I think, that research which deals with basic issues in such areas as motivation, learning, institutional processes, intergroup relations and purposive social change will give a better basis for decisions in educational administration than will studies directly concerned with program planning and assessment. But we cannot wait for the long run. Often a carefully planned, relatively simple study can give partial and reasonably immediate answers. For example, one wishes to know whether a proposed change in the method of allocating personnel or other resources is likely to achieve certain long-range objectives. Often the achievement of the long-range objectives is contingent on more immediate changes or happenings. If then, one can spell out one's assumptions and specify the nature of intermediate processes (which may not be sufficient but are necessary to the attainment of objectives) a study of the context and process of change may greatly aid immediate planning and incidentally add to our knowledge of such processes.

I am suggesting that we do not have to think of research with a capital R to develop the research point of view. No matter how meager his fiscal resources or how heavy the demands upon him, the person with a research point of view is looking for answers through the more or less systematic examination of his objectives and what he needs to know to attain them. Research will never provide all the answers. It will at best provide a knowledge of certain relatively stable patterns of interaction and influences among organizational attributes and processes. The administrator will have to assess the relevance of available systematic knowledge in terms of the constellations of people, institutional structures and processes that are involved in any given setting.

We have, of course, a good deal of information available now that we don't use in program planning and day-to-day administration. We know more about differences in value systems among class and ethnic groups than we use in many school systems. We need to know much more about the most effective means of communicating with different groups of children and parents whose values are sharply divergent from those of the educational system. But in how many school systems or in how many courses in educational administration is an effort made to mobilize what we do know and make the best possible use of it? This is one place where the research point of view can be transmitted and engendered in others.

Another place where one can get started is in looking at the data that are routinely generated by operating programs. Most public programs keep far more elaborate records than they ever use. If they are badly kept, of course, they may not be worth spending any time on. And if they are not absolutely required for administrative operations, such datacollecting systems might better be abolished. But often quite decent data are collected-and then never analyzed, Can we ask our record systems some meaningful questions? This is one place where the graduate student can often do something useful that is within his competence.

A step removed would be the use of such record systems for getting more strategic information--on staff dynamics relative to population dynamics, for example. This is research with a small r, but it can provide the basis for formulating some bigger questions. It can occasionally make us realize that some of our assumptions have been all wet.

Let me offer just a few comments on research organization. It will be apparent from what I have said already that I believe much can be done by the individual or small team possessed of substantive knowledge and research skills. It has been observed that perhaps the best kind of interdisciplinary research is that which combines "two skills in one skull." But at times the existence of a larger, more grossly interdisciplinary research establishment can help to focus attention and effort in a way that catalyzes research development for a whole field.

I regret that I am not familiar with the research establishments that you now have or that are in process of becoming in educational administration. At the risk of being fatuous, I would only say that I hope they do or will bring together persons who are intent