Confirmatory blockmodeling is a deductive approach in blockmodeling, where a blockmodel (or part of it) is prespecify before the analysis, and then the analysis is fit to this model. When only a part of analysis is prespecify (like individual cluster(s) or location of the block types), it is called partially confirmatory blockmodeling.
This is so-called indirect approach, where the blockmodeling is done on the blockmodel fitting (e.g., a priori hypothesized blockmodel).Aleš Žiberna, Generalized blockmodeling of valued networks (pospološeno bločno modeliranje omrežij z vrednostmi na povezavah: doktorska disertacija. Ljubljana: Univerza v Ljubljani, Fakulteta za družbene vede, 2007. URL: http://www2.arnes.si/~aziber4/blockmodeling/Dissertation-final-corrected.pdf.
Opposite approach to the confirmatory blockmodeling is an inductive exploratory blockmodeling.
References
See also prespecific blockmodeling