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Cited by 382

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 48 of the 48 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Theory Construction Methodology: A Practical Framework for Building Theories in Psychology

Open access
Borsboom, Denny, van der Maas, Han L. J., Dalege, Jonas, Kievit, Rogier A., Haig, Brian D.·2021·Perspectives on Psychological Science
DOI 10.1177/1745691620969647
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Abstract

This article aims to improve theory formation in psychology by developing a practical methodology for constructing explanatory theories: theory construction methodology (TCM). TCM is a sequence of five steps. First, the theorist identifies a domain of empirical phenomena that becomes the target of explanation. Second, the theorist constructs a prototheory , a set of theoretical principles that putatively explain these phenomena. Third, the prototheory is used to construct a formal model , a set of model equations that encode explanatory principles. Fourth, the theorist investigates the explanatory adequacy of the model by formalizing its empirical phenomena and assessing whether it indeed reproduces these phenomena. Fifth, the theorist studies the overall adequacy of the theory by evaluating whether the identified phenomena are indeed reproduced faithfully and whether the explanatory principles are sufficiently parsimonious and substantively plausible. We explain TCM with an example taken from research on intelligence (the mutualism model of intelligence), in which key elements of the method have been successfully implemented. We discuss the place of TCM in the larger scheme of scientific research and propose an outline for a university curriculum that can systematically educate psychologists in the process of theory formation.

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Show all 48 references

Research works printed but not linked: 16

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Metadata

Authors
Borsboom, D., van der Maas, H. L. J., Dalege, J., Kievit, R. A., & Haig, B. D.
Venue
Perspectives on Psychological Science
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2021-02-16
Volume
16
Issue
4
Pages
756-766
ISSN
  • 1745-6916 (ISSN-L)
  • 1745-6924
DOI
10.1177/1745691620969647
OpenAlex
W3130490927
Cited by
382
References
48
FWCI
126.61
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
bronze
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Funders
  • Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (VI.C.181.029)
  • H2020 European Research Council (647209)

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Theory Construction Methodology: A Practical Framework for Building Theories in Psychology. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1177/1745691620969647
The paper
Borsboom, D., van der Maas, H. L. J., Dalege, J., Kievit, R. A., & Haig, B. D. (2021). Theory Construction Methodology: A Practical Framework for Building Theories in Psychology. Perspectives on Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620969647

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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.