One of the most common issues I have seen in Paper 2 practice is that students know the concept, but do not apply it closely enough to their class practical. I personally feel that a question on the concept of Responsibility may be the most challenging, as students may be preoccupied with recalling key terminology and tempted to list as many ethical considerations as possible, rather than focusing on those explicit links.
Question 2 is an application question. The markband for this question distinguishes between responses with only “some relevant links” to the class practical and top-band responses with clear and detailed links.
Imagine the question is: Explain the concept of responsibility in relation to your observation class practical. [4]
For these examples, the class practical will focus on study behaviours in high school students aged 16-18 years.
A generic answer
Responsibility refers to the ethical duty of researchers to protect participants’ rights, dignity and wellbeing throughout the research process. In an observation, researchers should consider informed consent, the right to withdraw, privacy, anonymity and confidentiality, protection from psychological or social harm, and appropriate debriefing. They should also think carefully about whether participants may feel judged, embarrassed or uncomfortable as a result of being observed, and minimise these risks where possible. Responsibility therefore involves balancing the value of collecting useful behavioural data against the possible impact of the observation on the people taking part.
This answer does use appropriate terminology and applies some ethical considerations to observational research. The issue is that the response is too generic and could apply to any observation. To reach the top mark band, the response needs to show how responsibility mattered in this practical
A top-band applied answer
Responsibility was particularly important because we observed students aged 16–18 while they studied for a real Biology test, so being watched could have made them feel judged. We therefore used an overt observation and gained informed consent before recording their behaviour.
Protection from harm, anonymity and confidentiality of data were also relevant because one category was off-study conversation, which could portray a student negatively. We therefore recorded only frequency counts of four predefined behaviours – off-study conversation, checking notes, peer explanation and summarising – and did not record names, grades or judgements about individual students.
Students were also told that they could withdraw at any time, including during the 25-minute session. Finally, we debriefed them afterwards, explaining that we were interested in general patterns of study behaviour rather than evaluating individual students, and reminded them that they could withdraw their data.
The difference is not only that the second answer contains more detail. It would reach the top mark band because every ethical point is tied to a specific feature of this practical. The students will only have around 10 minutes for this answer, which would be around 100-140 words (the above example is 136 words), so it cannot be completely comprehensive within these constraints… it does however need those explicit links.
A generic statement might be “Researchers should protect confidentiality in observational research.”, whereas the applied version might be “Privacy, especially anonymity and confidentiality of data, mattered because one of our categories, off-study conversation, could portray an individual student negatively.”
Rather than “Researchers should debrief participants after the observation.” an applied version might look like “Debriefing mattered because students might have worried that we were judging how well they studied.”
A useful test might be: Could someone who had never done my practical have written this sentence? If the answer is yes, the point is probably still too generic.
For Question 2, this approach will hep your students to apply responsibility to their specific practical:
