Twenty marks, four questions, all of them about a practical you ran yourself. This is the most predictable section in the entire course, and the students who do badly are almost always the ones who never wrote their practical down properly.
📘 What you need to know
Section A has four compulsory SAQs based on your class practicals, worth 20 marks in total.
Q1 (4 marks): describe the method you used.
Q2 (4 marks): explain how a concept relates to your practical.
Q3 (6 marks): compare and contrast your method with another method named in the question.
Q4 (6 marks): design a new study on the same topic using a different method.
The method tested will be an experiment, an observation, a survey or questionnaire, or an interview.
Command terms range across AO1, AO2 and AO3, so the four questions are marked very differently.
Question 1: describe the method
Four marks for a concise, factual account of how you ran the study. Examiners want clear knowledge of the research method and a short explanation of how you implemented it. Four elements cover it.
The sample line is worth being fussy about. “24 students obtained by opportunity sampling” scores; “some people from our class” does not.
Question 2: explain how a concept relates
Four marks. You are given, or you choose, a concept — bias, measurement, validity, reliability — and you explain how it is relevant to your practical, then justify why it matters there.
Two moves get the marks. First a clear explanation of what the concept means in your study, then a justification of why it is significant for the results you got.
A worked link: if your practical was a lab experiment, you could take measurement as the concept and explain how your standardised procedure kept the measure consistent across participants, which made your findings more reliable and more valid.
Question 3: compare and contrast
Six marks, and the command term is AO3. The question names a second method, and you must show both similarities and differences in a balanced discussion. Students routinely lose marks by giving four differences and no similarities.
Useful shared ground to reach for: both use systematic data collection, both need ethical approval, both raise sampling questions. Differences usually sit in control, setting and data type.
Question 4: design a new study
Six marks. You keep the same research topic and rebuild it around a different method — and it will usually be different from the one named in Question 3, so have two alternatives ready.
Examiners want a solid, workable design and evidence that you can reframe a research topic to fit a new method. If your practical was an experiment on short-term memory, you could design a questionnaire asking participants what they can recall over a short period and which techniques they use to help.
🧩 What a Question 4 design must include
The new method, named clearly, and different from your practical.
The same topic, reframed to suit it. Do not quietly change the research question.
An aim stated in one sentence.
A sample: who, how many, and by which sampling technique.
A procedure: enough steps that someone else could run it.
One design detail that shows judgement, such as standardised instructions, behavioural categories, or anonymity.
Worked examples
WORKED EXAMPLE
Question 3, compare and contrast
Compare and contrast the methodology of the experiment in your class practical with the methodology of an observation. [6 marks]
Similarity 1
Both collect data systematically, using a procedure agreed in advance rather than casual impressions.
Similarity 2
Both can produce quantitative data, and both need the behaviour defined clearly before recording starts.
Difference 1Our experiment manipulated an IV; a naturalistic observation manipulates nothing at all.Difference 2
Our controlled setting raised internal validity but lowered realism; an observation in a natural setting does the reverse.
Two of each, balanced, both methods discusseduse the words “similarly” and “in contrast” — it makes the structure visible to the examiner
WORKED EXAMPLE
Question 4, design a new study
Your class practical was an experiment testing whether pictures improve word recall. Design a questionnaire study on the same topic. [6 marks]
Method and aim
A questionnaire investigating which memory strategies students believe help them remember information.Sample
60 students from two year groups, obtained by opportunity sampling at lunchtime.
Materials
Ten closed rating-scale items on strategy use, plus two open questions on what helps them most.
Procedure
Anonymous, completed in one sitting, piloted on five students first to remove unclear wording.
Same topic, different method, workable designthe pilot and the anonymity are the details that lift this from adequate to strong
💡 Exam tip
Write your practical on one page before study leave: aim, method, sample, procedure, findings, and two concepts it links to.
Learn your sampling technique by name. It appears in Q1 and again in Q4.
For Q3, prepare one similarity and one difference for each of the other three methods. That is twelve short notes and it covers every version of the question.
In Q4, keep the topic identical. Changing it is the fastest way to lose marks.
Watch the command terms: Q1 is AO1, Q2 is AO2, Q3 is AO3 and Q4 asks you to design.
Six-mark answers need roughly twelve minutes. Four-mark answers need roughly seven.
⚠️ Common mix-up
Evaluating in Question 1. It asks you to describe, so strengths and limitations earn nothing there.
Only contrasting in Question 3. Half the marks are for similarities.
Reusing the Q3 method in Q4. Q4 usually wants yet another one.
Changing the research topic in Q4. The topic stays; only the method moves.
Describing the practical again in Q2. Q2 is about the concept, applied to it.
Vagueness about the sample. Number, characteristics and sampling technique are all worth marks.
Up next: Writing a Strong ERQ in Paper 2 — how to take a study you have never seen and pull two key concepts out of it in five minutes.
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