Testing a Theory
PSY/201

Testing a Theory
When I was 18 years old, I was fortunate enough to get a job as a guitar instructor. This was only the second job that I ever had, and I was excited about both the opportunity to share my knowledge with others and by the decent wages offered. While I had already been playing guitar for several years and had the technical ability, I had no experience in educating others. While I improved over time, I began my work as an instructor based on a rather naïve theory.
Before I began instructing on my own, I shadowed the instructor I was replacing on his last day. This gave me a chance to meet the students and to watch how he conducted his classes. I noticed he generally used the same material for each student. The only real variation was how far along each individual student was in the material. From observing this, I decided to take the same approach. I developed the theory that since all my students were learning the same instrument, they could all be taught the same way. When I began teaching on my own, I quickly learned that this theory was false.
From this theory, I formed the hypothesis that my students could be taught in the same manner and from the same material with little or no variation. I then began testing this hypothesis on my students. While I did not consider it in this way at the time, my initial teaching experience was an experiment of sorts. I inadvertently had formed a theory, a hypothesis, and finally began an experiment to test this hypothesis. I prepared my teaching material and began my first day of classes. These students were males and females of various ages, races, and levels of previous experience.
I began to see quickly how flawed my hypothesis was. A few students took to the material easily and did very well; however, many students struggled or became bored and uninterested.