Summary
The episode works through four questions that students often find difficult in multilevel theory and program planning. The hosts sort an invented child's situation into Bronfenbrenner's systems, correct a common misplacement of a city department's decision, and show that a setting's system depends on the person at the centre. They then separate prediction from explanation in the Theory of Triadic Influence and apply PRECEDE phases and importance and changeability ratings to extreme heat among older adults in British Columbia. A harder example applies the risk and protective factors model to early school leaving in an invented mining town, showing why importance and changeability should be kept as separate ratings and why attachment can be a risk or a protective factor depending on the group. The episode closes with a discussion of whether multilevel theories can be tested and a shared rule for stating a program's expected causal path before evaluation.