FMST 302 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Inductive Reasoning, General Idea, Deductive Reasoning

• School: Towson University
• Department: Family and Human Services
• Course: FMST 302
• Professor: Bethany Willis Hepp

Document Summary

Intro to theories: what they are and why they are important (smith and hamon page 1-8) What is theory: tool used to be aware of, understand, describe, explain, predict, and evaluate behavior, drives research by generating questions that are tested with research, have identifiable components: Propositions: relationships between concepts, how they fit together in context. For propositions to be useful, they have to help us ask questions and understand behavior empirically (heuristic value: good theories. Are flexible enough to grow with new information. Are generalizable enough to apply to variety of cases. Theory (generalities) deductive reasoning: testing a general idea from a theory to tease out details research (specifics) inductive reasoning: taking specific bits of into and forming a general idea (cycle and repeat) What makes family theories different: family as unique social group. Marked by affinity and biological and legal relationships.