The Process of Model-Building in the Behavioral Sciences

How does one analyze a set of real events in order to isolate and define the important variables that appear to be operating? Determine the structure of relationships between the variables? Represent the content and structure of a system of events in the form of a mathematical equation? The student of model-building seeks answers to many such questions that are not adequately dealt with in the existing literature. In this book, eight experts fill an important need by offering a range of approaches to model-building in the behavioral sciences. The papers in this collection reflect the contributors' common concern to improve the teaching methodology in those fields in which model-building is increasingly the primary focus of research. The insights they provide will be of crucial interest to students of model-building is increasingly the primary focus of research. The insights they provide will be of crucial interest to students of model-building and those who instruct them in the preconditions for constructing workable models of behavior.