Explaining Behavior 4.5: Teaching Testability

A classroom activity on confirmation and falsification.

Addendum to Explaining Behavior 4: Testability.

(Note 1/19: The Explaining Behavior series is free, but classroom activities and teaching tips like this are bonus content for paid subscribers.)

In this post I describe an activity I do when teaching my students about whether theories can be confirmed or falsified. I usually do it after we talk about Popper and falsifiability.

This activity works best if the students don’t know the answer right away. It’s based on an influential psychology paper, so psych majors or grad students might already be wise to it. But in my experience (teaching criminology undergrads at a large state school with a high acceptance rate) it takes most classes a while to get the right answer. Adjust expectations according to what sort of students you’re teaching.

Here’s how the exercise goes: