On Martyn Hammersley's Critique of Bassey's Concept of the Fuzzy Generalisation

This article is a further contribution to a critique of Michael Bassey's concept of 'fuzzy generalisations' as a form of dissemination of educational research. Martyn Hammersley has questioned both the uniqueness, and validity, of 'fuzzy' generalisation; the former in terms of a misunderstanding about the nature of generalisation as a whole, and the latter in relation to the potential for circumventing the research community's role in validation. It is argued here that, whilst in agreement with the first of these criticisms, the second depends upon the perspective taken, and that, from the perspective of the practitioner--as opposed to the researcher--(external) validity is a question of 'usefulness' within a particular context rather than generalisability across contexts. Furthermore, generalisations which state what will happen to a practitioner may fail to take account of the fact that he or she is far from being a passive recipient of the research.