From comments made by the students on each of the answers, they received, in his documentary method experiment, Garfinkel draws the following conclusions. Students made sense of the answers where no sense existed; they imposed an order on the answers where no order as present.
When answers appeared contradictory or surprising, the students assumed that the counsellor was unaware of the full facts of their case. The students constructed an appearance of order by using the in his documentary method experiment method.
From the first answer they perceived an underlying pattern in the counsellor’s advice. The sense of each following answer was interpreted in terms of the pattern and at the same time each answer was seen as evidence for the existence of the pattern.
Thus the student’s method of interpretation was reflexive. Garfinkel claims that the counselling experiment highlights and captures the procedures that members are constantly using in their everyday lives to construct the social world.