{"id":9781,"date":"2017-10-26T09:47:57","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T00:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ibpsych.themantic-education.com\/?p=9781"},"modified":"2017-10-26T09:47:57","modified_gmt":"2017-10-26T00:47:57","slug":"t-e-a-c-u-p-and-why-i-dont-use-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themantic-education.com\/ibpsych\/2017\/10\/26\/t-e-a-c-u-p-and-why-i-dont-use-it\/","title":{"rendered":"T.E.A.C.U.P…and why I don’t use it."},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I posted about how to evaluate psychological theories in three simple steps<\/a>. I mentioned John Crane’s popular acronym T.E.A.C.U.P, which stands for: testable, evidence, applications, construct validity, unbiased and predictive validity. (It can be found on John’s website<\/a>, too).<\/p>\n

This is an alternative to my “Let’s make a DEAL” framework for evaluating theories.\u00a0You can see that my DEAL framework has two of the same critieria: evidence<\/strong> and applications<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But I don’t use TEACUP for a few reasons. Here’s just a few:<\/p>\n

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#1. Time<\/strong><\/p>\n

If I had more time in IB Psychology I might be able to let students explore and discuss the T, C, U, P aspects of a theory. But honestly, for any theory I have about four hours. In that time we can cover the theory itself, at least two related studies, practical applications and perhaps some limitations. I simply find I don’t have time to go any deeper than this.<\/p>\n

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#2. Reality<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’d be interested to hear from teachers who use TEACUP if their students are actually able to independently<\/em> <\/strong>make critical comments regarding construct validity or the predictive validity of any particular theory. In my experience, the reality is that most students work hard enough as it is to (a) comprehend the theory and (b) explain the evidence. Even the applications and limitations are the realm of the extended students, and are actually all they need to get top marks. The reality is that very few students are able to do anything more than repeat someone else’s evaluation of the critical points regarding the TCUP, which is why other sites give the answers instead of posing critical thinking questions.<\/p>\n

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#3. Critical Thinking<\/strong><\/p>\n

I believe that genuine critical thinking is independent and spontaneous. I know that the ability to explain strengths and limitations of the theories I teach in IB Psychology is largely irrelevant past exam day: what I’m teaching is the ability to independently evaluate arguments<\/span> and evidence<\/span>.<\/em> Therefore, I’m not interested in students reading others’ evaluations of studies and theories – I want them to be able to come up with their own. This is the skill that I’m trying to develop and will hopefully last a lifetime.<\/p>\n

Being able to recite the construct validity of schema theory will be useless for 99.9% of IB Psychology students beyond exam day – so why would I teach it?<\/p>\n

The DEAL framework gets students in the habit of asking questions like:<\/p>\n