In casual language, the terms theory and model are often used interchangeably. From a technical point of view there is an important difference. Theories provide a general framework, but because of the generality of the specification, a theory cannot be shown to be useful or useless until it is fully specified in the form of a model. A model, on the other hand, needs by definition to be formulated within the concepts, along with a set of assumptions about the concepts and their relationships. The appropriateness of a model must then be evaluated with respect to a particular set of test data. The evaluation may be done by conducting a suitably designed set of empirical investigations, by rational inspection of the model assumptions in relation to the test data, or ideally both. In the strict sense, all models provide incomplete representations of the data to which they to fitted. Therefore the meaningful question is not whether a model is correct or incorrect, but rather whether the model fits the data well enough to be useful in guiding the process. Statistical evidence and judgment play important roles in answering that question.
Question: Most people fail to understand the difference between a theory and a model.
Options:
A. true, B. false, C. uncertain
Answer: A