Use of Theory

This week, our students are working on writing up the supporting theory for our article as well as posting our research questions/hypotheses.

The use of theory has often, in my humble experience, been a sticking point with students and here I am thinking about my work with doctoral students in the dissertation, as well as our lab students. As Tesser aptly notes '...few of us have formal training in theory...hypotheses are derivations from a more general theory and are often tied to concrete observations. The line between what is a hypothesis and what is a theory is often fuzzy' (Sternberg, 2000, pp. 58-59).

Another idea Tesser puts forth is that of the theory's impact (Sternberg, 2000, p. 59) or as Tesser defines '...the extent to which people use the theory in explaining relevant phenomena' (Sternberg, 2000, p. 59). I am not certain but think this *may* be where students get tripped up in that sometimes, our hypotheses are a more clear or direct test of the theory than at other times.

For example, the Health Belief Model (Rosenstock, 1966) indicates that certain cognitive factors impact our health behavior; specifically, the model states that perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits and perceived barriers directly influence the likelihood of our engaging in a given health behavior, say - quitting smoking.

A direct test of this model might be a study that measures all four of those cognitive factors along with the given health behavior as outcome in a particular population not previously studied - and voila! We have an obvious test of Rosenstock's theory. We can readily see in this example, how the original theory influenced our choice of variables and measures. In fact, this would likely be a replication of many other studies of the Health Belief Model, depending upon study specifics.

An indirect test of this model might be a study that addresses only part of this model - say perceived susceptibility to rare forms of cancer in smokers relative to quitting behavior. Alternately, an indirect test of this model might be one that instead measures predictors of perceived susceptibility with the predictors being treated as Independent Variables and perceived susceptibility being treated as the outcome or Dependent Variable. In either of these instances, we would not be directly testing the Health Belief Model but rather parts of it. It can therefore be less clear to look at theory as having a high impact (using Tesser's framework) when the study at hand provides an indirect or partial model test.

Another aspect of theory that seems at times confusing for students is the need to present both seminal work when discussing the theory at hand as well as presenting the most current research testing part or all of that theory. Both are needed and often I find students in their zest for presenting the most current literature omit reference to the seminal work of the person who in fact created the theory!

My last comment on the role of theory is that while it/the theory at hand is its own unique entity - our presentation of theory ultimately fits within our Introduction (for an article) or our literature review (for a dissertation). This fact is yet another reminder that our research and the presentation of our research (whether in an article or a dissertation) must align...from social problem to gap in literature to the theory that helps organize our take on that gap to our methods, etc...
So we do not, in an article, typically include theories we are not in any way (direct or indirect) assessing. This would not be in alignment with the rest of our paper. Now, in a dissertation we want to discuss possible theories without testing each one - but the purpose of the dissertation is of course, quite different from that of an article.

Hope this makes sense!

AES

Rosenstock, I.M. (1966). Why people use health services. Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 44, 94-127.

Tesser, A. (2000). Theories and hypotheses. In R.J. Sternberg (Ed.). Guide to Publishing in Psychology Journals. (pp. 58-80). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.