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A practical approach to developing and testing explanations

Sem01 (2024-2025) Fundamentals - methods for explanation and understanding

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This course will teach you how to apply the fundamentals of critical thinking (reasoning), formal modeling, and experimental design to build better theories. You will go step-by-step through building, evaluating, and improving your own explanation.

Being good at explaining and understanding is fundamental to many aspects of life. It is a skill you learn by doing: developing many theories and checking what works and what doesn’t. Thus, this course is directed towards active participation. A hands-on approach is used where each week you are made familiar with one or more steps of building and evaluating theories. This course is of added value to reasoning and communication skills in general and, in particular, will assist in the assessment of the many pseudoscientific and conspiracy theories that we are currently confronted with. Finally, this course offers unique methodological education and practice that will be of benefit to those interested in pursuing a PhD. Note that statistics play a very minor role and no programming skills or math skills beyond high school level are required.

This is an honours course

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Course details

  • Practical information

    Academic year
    2024-2025

    Semester
    1 

    Period
    2

    Day(s)
    Tuesdays & 1 full Saturday (23 Nov)

    Time
    Tuesdays: 18:00 – 21:00
    Saturday: 10:00 – 17:00

    Number of meetings
    8

    Dates all meetings
    29 October;
    5, 12, 19, 23, 26 November;
    3, 10 December

    Location
    Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam

    Room
    To be announced 

    Credits
    6

    Lecturers

    • Dr. Noah van Dongen | Contact: n.djaye@gmail.com
    • Prof. dr. Denny Borsboom

  • Learning objectives

    After the course, the students will have acquired knowledge and skills on:

    1. Critical thinking, formal reasoning, and logic
    2. Basics of causal modelling
    3. Basics of mathematical and computational modelling
    4. Deriving predictions/consequences of theories and formulating critical tests
    5. Critical assessment of theories and their amendment in light of new evidence
    6. General assessment of the quality of scientific theories

  • Assessment methods
    • Group-based assignments (50%), individual research plan (25%), group-based presentation of the theory building process (25%)
    • Group-based assignments (2-4 persons) are evenly spread-out across the course. These assignments are designed to put the materials of the lectures directly into practice, taking the students step-by-step through the process of theory development, testing, and assessment. These are small assignments that are introduced and started before the end of each lecture.
    • Near the end of the course, individual students write a brief research proposal (max 1000 words) for a critical test of the theory their group has been developing during the previous lectures.
    • On the final day of the course, the groups will give a presentation on their theory development: the results of the steps they took in the development of their theory (group-based assignments), the proposed tests.

  • Study materials

    Relevant tools, e.g.,

    Some of the scientific literature for the interested reader (not mandatory):

    • Borsboom, D., van der Maas, H. L. J., Dalege, J., Kievit, R. A., & Haig, B. D. (2020). Theory Construction Methodology: A practical framework for theory formation in psychology. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/w5tp8
    • Fried, E. I. (2020). Lack of theory building and testing impedes progress in the factor and network literature. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/zg84s
    • Guest, O., & Martin, A. E. (2020). How computational modeling can force theory building in psychological science.
    •  Robinaugh, D. J., Haslbeck, J. M. B., Ryan, O., Fried, E. I., & Waldorp, L. J. (2020). Invisible Hands and Fine Callipers: A Call to Use Formal Theory as a Toolkit for Theory Construction. PsyArXiv. https://psyarxiv.com/ugz7y
    • Van Rooij, I., & Baggio, G. (2020). Theory before the test: How to build high-verisimilitude explanatory theories in psychological science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1745691620970604.

    Other material, e.g.:

    •    https://neuroplausible.com/path
    •    http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2017/11/how-popper-killed-particle-physics.html
    •    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp0tYLufcNo&feature=youtu.be