If you are doing social sciences such as Psychology, Sociology or Criminology, you may have come across A03 on your mark scheme. A03 is seen as a higher level skill as it involves critical thinking and evaluation. Most of the time you are asked to evaluate a theory or a piece or research.
The mark scheme describes A03 as: analyse and evaluate sociological/ psychological theories, concepts, evidence and research methods in order to: present arguments, make judgements and draw conclusions.
Now this may sound really difficult but it is really simple, all it is asking is ..
- what do you know
- how do you know
This means any point that you raise must be backed up by support. An argument is only valid if there is a strong body of evidence to back it up. For more information on how to structure a PEEL paragraph, please see our post on Critical Thinking.
Remember A03 is not only about picking out the weakness of a piece or research/theory, it is about developing a argument that is balanced and well supported.
Coming to a conclusion
For the purposes of the exam, a conclusion does not need to be more than a couple of sentences. A conclusion should encapsulate your whole argument and make reference to the points raised.
Some examples maybe:
- In conclusion, human behaviour can be determined by our genes. We can observe this through investigating the concordance rate of aggression amongst identical twins. However, to say human behaviour is determined by one factor is reductionist. Jones et al.,2010 discovered that our childhood shapes our personality which may hint that our environment also plays a part in the development of aggression.
- Indeed, the cognitive approach can be said to be more scientific as we can observe neurological changes in the brain through CAT scans however, it fails to address how parenting style can influence the onset of depression as supported by Smith et al., 2010.
- As discussed above, drug therapy can have its advantages as it works instantly, reduces relapse rate [Chadderton, 2009] and is easy to administer. However, if not taken sensibly, drugs can cause side effects and addiction as shown by Williams, 2003 – which questions its usefulness in Schizophrenic patients.
Plan
To assist your argument, you may want to prepare a simple plan
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