Analytic goals are vitally important to the contextualistic world view. This is because the analytic tools of contextualism—its root metaphor and truth criterion—both hinge on the purpose of the analysis, and neither can be mounted effectively without a clearly specified analytic goal. (Reese, 1993, p. 77).
Likewise, the root metaphor of the "act-in-context" is rendered meaningless in an analysis without an explicit goal because there would be no basis on which to restrict the analysis to a subset of the infinite expanse of the act’s historical and environmental context (Hayes, 1993b). Without a clear analytic goal, the contextualist could analyze the endless context of an act in perpetuity, without ever knowing when the analysis was complete or good enough to be deemed
Contextualists can, and do, adopt different analytic goals, and the many different varieties of contextualism can be distinguished by their goals. Based on their overarching analytic goals, contextualistic theories can be divided into two general categories: descriptive contextualism and functional_contextualism
| Descriptive Contextualism | Functional Contextualism | |
| Example | Social Constructionism | Behavior Analysis |
|
Analytic goal |
To understand the complexity and richness of a whole event through an appreciation of its participants and features | To predict and influence events with precision, scope, and depth using empirically-based concepts and rules |
| Knowledge constructed | Personal, ephemeral, specific, local, and spatiotemporally restricted (e.g., a historical narrative) | General, abstract, and spatiotemporally unrestricted (e.g., a scientific principle) |
| Content and focus | Individual-in-context | Behavior-in-context |
| Preferred methods | Qualitative and narrative | Quantitative and experimental |
| Disciplinary type | Natural history | Natural science |