Teaching Relationships – Filter Theory

Singles Night Match-Making

Relevant for A-Level

When I was first choosing which optional topics to teach for the Unit 3 paper, a couple of topics stood out as potentially being student favourites – relationships and forensics. Students are always fascinated by how and why relationships form (and fall apart), as well as the idea of studying criminals. At face value, these topics are easily applicable to students’ lives; relationships are an important part of their lives, and making sense of the make-ups and break-ups is an appealing and useful application of knowledge. Hopefully they haven’t been criminals, but they love documentaries about them, and unfortunately the world we live in means that crimes are more at the forefront of their minds than for previous generations.

However, when I started teaching the relationships topic (which I hadn’t on the old specification), I felt that some of the theories were a bit dry and students had a tendency to mix up the concepts from different theories. To help with this, I use different application activities for each theory to get students using each one. One of these activities is a match-making activity about filter theory that the students love – Steve’s Singles Night!

A few things to note before we get into the strategy:

1. This is a lesson for the AQA Specification, which is aimed at getting students to apply filter theory after having learned the knowledge of the theory itself. At A-Level, I use flipped learning (http://flmpsychologypedagogy.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/flipped-learning-part-1-setting-tasks.html). This means that students have learned the basics of the theory before the lesson. Their understanding is assessed through discussion questions (http://flmpsychologypedagogy.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/flipped-learning-part-2-assessing.html) before beginning this activity.

2. My school uses a bronze, silver, gold medal system for differentiation. This can be used to give students choice (so they can complete either the bronze, silver or gold task) or they can work their way up the medals to earn gold and go from the 'easiest' task to the most 'difficult.' We then use challenge tasks to really extend the thinking of the top end.

3. This activity works best with printed resources, but can easily be adapted so that Steve's information can be projected and students can make their profiles on plain paper. Minimal photocopying required for those with tight budgets.

4. I've found that this activity works best using mixed ability groups, but it is still effective with ability groupings. When I use ability groupings, I add in an activity between steps 1 and 2 where one member of each group goes around to steal ideas from other groups to support the lower ability groups.

Step 1 – Analysing Steve’s profile

In groups of four, students are given a dating profile for Steve (see right). I tell students that Steve has been single for a while, so is at a ‘singles night’ at a bar near where he lives. As a group, they use the information about Steve to create a list of characteristics that Steve’s ideal woman would have (e.g. she would be a university graduate, live in London etc. for social demography). Then, using the key terms of filter theory and examples from Steve’s profile, they explain why Steve would find these characteristics attractive. For example, social demography suggests that we filter out a large number of available partners down to those who share our social demographic characteristics. Homogamy suggests that people form relationships with people who are socially and culturally similar to them. Therefore, Steve’s ideal partner would be someone who has the same level of education as him (graduate degree) and lives in the same area (London). See below for an example of how this can be differentiated.

Step 2 – Creating dates for Steve

I then tell students that at the end of the night, four women have told the host that they are interested in dating Steve (I have no idea how singles nights work, so this may be completely inaccurate!). In their groups, they then create a dating card, like Steve’s, for each of the four women (see right for template). Each student has the responsibility of creating one dating card profile, but the group can work together to suggest ideas to go onto each one. The women should all meet the criteria for different filters of filter theory:

Bachelorette 1 – meets the criteria for the social demography filter, but not the others.

Bachelorette 2 – meets the criteria for the social demography and similarity in attitudes filters, but not complementarity.

Bachelorette 3 – meets the criteria for all three filters.

Bachelorette 4 – mystery woman – you decide which filters she meets the criteria for (if any).

To get students to think more deeply about the theory, their challenge task is to explain whether Steve’s ideal woman would be the same or different according to the theories of physical attractiveness and sexual selection. This always leads to an interesting (and sometimes heated!) discussion.

Step 3 – Justification of decisions

To enable me to check their reasoning, the group then complete an answer sheet (see left for an example). They name each of the Bachelorettes, list the filters that she meets the criteria for, and then use Steve’s profile to briefly explain why Steve would find her attractive. If I have had enough time to circulate all of the groups and question their reasoning, I skip this step.

Step 4 – Match-making

Each group of four swaps dating profiles with another group. In their group, they act as match-makers for Steve to try to find his ideal woman using the criteria on the slide opposite. I encourage them to quote from the profiles so that they get into the habit of doing this in exam answers. The challenge task gets them to consider whether the social demography filter is still relevant in the digital age of dating. They then use the answer sheet from step 3 (or speak to the group who made the profiles if you’ve skipped this step) to check their answers.

This activity really helps students to see the real-world relevance of filter theory and has a notable impact on the quality of their application answers. Their answers to the Teddy and Sasha question were particularly strong after this lesson. Additionally, when it came to revision, they were far less likely to mix up the theories, and they had hooks for remembering each one (e.g. ‘Steve’s theory’). Give it a go and let me know how it works out.

As this is my final post before Christmas, I hope you all have a relaxing holiday; you've earned it!