To help clarify why theory is important, students can be asked to identify different theoretical perspectives that address a research problem or area in which they are interested. After formally stating their research question, they should attempt to come up with a fairly exhaustive list of the different theoretical perspectives that might be used to answer this question and discuss the implications of each perspective, as well as identify the limits of their list. Another activity is to have students pick a formal statement of a theory and analyze how good a theory it really is. In doing these types of activities, students should begin to understand that theories are the mechanisms that help us explain why some part of the world works the way that it does.