There is no set structure for how to answer these questions. I can give you some pointers, but essentially you're going to have to find a way that works for you. That being said, some starting points and structures can help.
The most important thing
The most important piece of advice I can give you is answer the question you're being set. Not the one you can best answer, not one you'd like to have come up. Everything you write must be related to the question. I'd suggest highlighting key words in the question including the key verb (e.g. assess, compare, evaluate). This'll get you in the right frame of mind.
Questions; what they're asking for
"Assess," "evaluate" and "to what extent" questions are essentially asking you to look at both strengths and weaknesses of a section, and then to come to a judgement in your conclusion. "Compare" questions obviously require key words such as "both","on the other hand", "in contrast" and "similarly" to really emphasise that you're answering the question.
The way that questions in this section are worded are sometimes a little tricky to get your head around. Words such as "appropriateness" and "effectiveness" are seemingly easy to understand until you start to write it down. So, learn some simple definitions. By defining a key term in the intro, you will start to think of evaluation issues to relate to it and give your mini-essay some structure. "Appropriateness" refers to suitability, and encompasses suitability to a person or group, situation, or occasion. So you could evaluate temporal validity, generalizability, ethnocentrism, etc. "Effectiveness" refers to the extent to which it brings about an effect, or achieves the desired results. So, you could talk about if it has negative or positive implications, the strength of these applications, and more specific factors such as recidivism rates or benefits to society.
Remember that this is an evaluation section; they want you to make judgements and insights, and then to illustrate these with examples from studies/theories/techniques, but you won't get marks for just outlining or describing the studies. Using key terms such as "reliability", "validity", "usefulness" and "applications"
Structure
You need a brief intro, a main body consisting of two or three paragraphs (and about five to seven evaluative points), and a brief conclusion linking explicitly back to the question.
One way some people like to structure their paragraphs is PEcEC:
Point, Example, compare, Example, Conclude
Note that the conclude section will include at least two or three evaluation points.
Final thoughts
But this isn't necessary and it doesn't work for some people. As long as you give a range of evaluation points related to the question, that you're concise, use relevant detail, illustrate with examples and conclude with explicit link back to the question, then that's all you need. Keep practising your timing too; you only have 15-20 mins for this section and if you run over, you run the risk of not having time to answer the other questions.
If you'd like to see an example of a 15 mark question (full marks), click here.
Do you have any answers you've written for a 15 marker? I don't understand your PEeEC.
ReplyDeleteE.g. How useful is research into investigating prisons? Or anything really!
I must be getting annoying now.
I've posted a full mark answer for part b) - the link's now at the bottom of the original post. The PEcEC is merely a guideline for people who like structure; I don't always use it myself as I prefer to write less rigidly, but most people in my psych class like this method.
DeleteThe example I posted has one PEcEC paragraph, so I've copied it to below and separated it into the Point, evidence, comparison word/sentence, evidence and conclusion.
POINT: One of the main limitations of diagnosing dysfunctional behaviour is actually trying to define what dysfunctional behaviour is, because everybody varies, and what one person sees as dysfunctional may actually be quite normal or adaptive for somebody else.
EXAMPLE: This could be seen in Rosenhan’s study “On being sane in insane places”, where behaviour such as waiting for food was misinterpreted as the participant being “oral-acquisitive”. Rosenhan and Seligman formulated criteria for defining behaviour as dysfunctional, but this has limited validity for a number of reasons. For example, the inclusion of Jahoda’s list of “ideal mental health” is actually very ethnocentric as it is more of a part of Western culture to act independently, whereas many Eastern cultures are more concerned with the group dynamic. This makes the list less useful and nomothetic, as it cannot be reliably applied to all people.
COMPARISON WORD:Similarly,
EVIDENCE: deviation from social norms is one of the four criteria, but this would mean that behaviour exhibited that caused the feminist and civil rights movements, as well as anybody who was homosexual, would be labelled as dysfunctional. The list is too simplistic and reductionist, because it doesn’t take into account that people vary so significantly that a few criteria on a list, or how statistically rare a behaviour is does not make it any more or less dysfunctional, as depression is more common than an IQ over 130, though most would see the latter as more preferable.
CONCLUSION: If we are unable to correctly define dysfunctional behaviour, this means construct validity is weakened, and we may be unable to tell what behaviours are actually maladaptive and negative for the individual, and thus be unable to treat it properly.
To what extent does the biological approach provide an explanation of criminal behaviour ?
ReplyDeleteHow would you answer this?
For "to what extent" questions, you essentially need to evaluate strengths and weaknesses for a couple of paragraphs, then make a judgement.
DeleteYou can structure this in a variety of ways, but personally I think I'd go down the route of doing one paragraph on evidence (shown in Raine, Brunner and Daly and Wilson) about how to some extent it does, because there appears to be a strong correlation between biology and criminality, but then mention the issue of correlation not showing cause and effect, so it's not known whether crime causes biology or biology causes crime.
Then I might go along the route of saying that it's a pretty reductionist explanation. Here you could bring in debates such as nature/nurture and situational/dispositional, because it only really looks at one side. You could then link it to suggesting that upbringing and cognition have been ignored despite various studies suggesting they have an important role.
Make sure you give evidence in the form of theories and studies to give some weight to your argument throughout, then conclude with a somewhat "middle ground" answer. It does explain it to some extent.... however...
how would you answer 'Assess the reliability of research into non adherence to medical advice'. completely stuck!! pls help
ReplyDeleteI am quite stuck with some of the wording of the part b questions. For example how would I answer a question 'Discuss the view that...' for a 15 mark evaluation question?x
ReplyDeleteSooo helpful, thank you. Eliminate Hsv-1&2 (Herpes) Robinsonbucler@gmail com...
ReplyDelete