Theory Construction and Model-Building Skills: A Practical Guide for Social Scientists - by James Jaccard and Jacob Jacoby

Abstract

Theory Construction and Model-Building Skills: Practical Guide for Social Scientists. James Jaccard and Jacob Jacoby. New York: Guilford Press. 2010. 391 pp. ISBN: 606233399. $35.00 paper. ISBN: 806233405. $55.00 cloth. Family studies programs often offer a family theory course at the graduate level and sometimes at the undergraduate level. Depending on the type of academic unit in which family studies is located, there may be additional theory courses on topics such as human development or sociological theory. Graduate students in family studies also have several methodology courses that cover statistical analysis and qualitative analysis. What is missing is the link between each of the theory courses, each of the methods courses, and, most important, between the methods courses and the theory courses. James Jaccard and Jacob Jacoby provide the missing link. Theory Construction and Model-Building Skills: Practical Guide for the Social Scientists will be as useful in traditional family studies programs as it will be in psychology, sociology, and health science programs. There are many books on theory construction, but generally the other books do not explicitly link a broad range of research methods, applications, and theory. The subtitle of the book, A Practical Guide, is important. The book lacks the rigor of a philosophy-of-science text and cannot offer the theoretical depth of monographs on specific frameworks. It is a great place, however, to start learning about a wide range of concepts and about how to relate them to training in quantitative or qualitative methods and training in theory courses. Each chapter includes a list of key terms, exercises to reinforce the terms, and exercises to apply the key concepts. The chapter on grounded and emergent theory lists 68 key terms, has 21 exercises to help students think through the meaning of those terms, and features 3 detailed exercises in which the key concepts can be applied. Similarly rich opportunities to apply the ideas follow each chapter. Family studies graduate students often take a series of statistics courses in which they learn an array of procedures but fail to learn why those procedures are useful. Students learn how to estimate a structural equation model but not how to relate that either inductively or deductively to theory. Typical methodology courses use key concepts in statistics such as mediation, moderation, multilevel analysis, or personcentered research with little understanding of what those have to do with family theory. This is especially true when graduate students complete their statistical training through courses in other disciplines in which the examples may not be especially helpful. When family studies graduate students take their family theory course, the course is often quite abstract, and they develop theories without the needed linkage to the appropriate qualitative or quantitative methods. …