Psychology A Level: Effective Evaluation
Effective Evaluation For Excellent Essays
Imagine your friend tells you to go and watch a particular film at the cinema, but all they will tell you about the film is that it’s ‘good’. You’d probably want a bit more information, right? You’d want them to elaborate! Let’s delve into this important skill of elaboration and look at how it is the cornerstone of effective evaluation for excellent essays in A-Level Psychology.
If you are doing a Home Study course you will find numerous templates on the internet for effective evaluation. You can PEEL, PEC, or make use of Tutor2u! But what is the key principle underpinning these various templates? If you can crack that then you don’t need to stick rigidly to a template but are free to develop your evaluation skills more organically, which will stand you in good stead if you progress to degree level study! Templates are an incredibly useful tool, but it’s important to also understand the process of evaluation. Imagine you’re in the exam, your mind goes blank and you can’t recall your pre-learnt PEEL paragraph to evaluate the biological approach. If you have developed the skill of evaluation you can think on your feet and still construct an effective paragraph!
The key principle underpinning the various templates is… elaboration! What does that actually mean? A colleague of mine once referred to it as the ‘So what? Effect’ which I think encapsulates it brilliantly. Every time you make an evaluation point in an essay (e.g. give a strength, limitation, research evidence etc.) ask yourself…have you (in any way) left it open for someone (i.e. the examiner!) to be left thinking “so what?”? In other words, have you explained, with detail and examples, the evaluation issue you stated? Have you gone on to discuss why this is a strength or limitation? What does it mean? What are the consequences or implications of this issue? Taking your evaluation skills a step further; is there a counter-argument you could offer to show you have considered the issue from different viewpoints?
Let’s work through an example, taking a common limitation students might give for the biological approach:
A weakness of biological explanations is that they are reductionist (How? So what?). This is a weakness as there could be other factors (Such as?) involved in the development of the disorder (So what? Why is this a problem?).
As you can see there a several ‘So what?’ moments in this evaluation paragraph. Let’s look at how this evaluation issue could be developed more fully:
A weakness of biological explanations is that they are reductionist. This means they reduce complex human behaviours to one level or factor. For example, the dopamine hypothesis explains schizophrenia purely in terms of a chemical imbalance, ignoring psychological and socio-cultural factors. This is a weakness as it oversimplifies the complexities of human behaviour. Some would argue it is important to take a more holistic view of human behaviour. However, it can be argued that reductionism is necessary in order to investigate a factor scientifically. For example, if one factor is isolated it can be operationalised and tested, producing results which are high in internal validity.
In summary, elaboration is ‘going the extra mile’ – fully explaining why something is a strength or limitation. As a general rule you are probably ‘elaborating’ if your sentence starts with a phrase such as… This suggests…/ Therefore…/On the other hand… etc.
So while completing your Oxford Home Schooling Psychology GCSE course, or A level course, have a go at using these tips to create effective evaluation for excellent essays! You can also Contact Us.
