the factory foreman may describe either the light out or the work stoppage
as a problem. Whoever is to correct the deficiency may look at the immed-
jate situation or two or three steps beyond for a block or a gap of some
kind. The search will likely be for a defect that interferes with the con-
tinuity of production and one that can be remedied with available knowledge,
material and capacities. While the example might constitute a researchable
problem, it would not on the face of it likely be considered of any signi-
ficance or point as a research problem.

To be significant, the findings would have to reguire some discovery
capable of generalization beyond the one experience. Better still, it would
be useful for advancing the state of the particular arts involved if the
findings could be related to previous theory and other investigation on such
matters. The exception would be if the conditions involved were so out of
the ordinary that: (a) the process of correction could not proceed without
developing and validating new knowledge or method of some kind; and, (b) the
new knowledge or method held potential for validation and use beyond the one
case situation.

So, there are gradations among problems, research problems, researchable
problems and problems that meet criteria important to people with guite
differing commitments. These run the gamut from those with basic disciplinary
commitments and predominant emphasis on methodology to those with primary
interest in practical affairs and practical applications to a middle range
professional interest. The latter, in constrast to more purely scientific
and more exclusively practical, might be characterized by an interest in
occupying the middle ground between knowledge building and knowledge using.

In my valuation, both ends and the nexus between all constitute legitimate

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