Establishing and using criteria
On the
mark schemes for all the new Edexcel A-Level papers, there is a requirement to establish and use criteria in your
judgements. This just means showing the examiner how you can measure the extent of something.
But this is
not hard to do - it simply means being
clear about the reasons for the judgements you make!
Here are
some thoughts for how you can do this…….
Change/Continuity, Significance, and
Similarity/Difference criteria (to judge the extent)
- Amount of people affected – consider social class, geographical spread, age and gender
- Length of change or impact – short or long term?
- Deep difference or lots of progress compared to previous situation – eg: in attitudes or policies
- Speed or pace – happened quickly or slowly over time?
- Effectiveness – accepted or resisted?
- Level of threat to the status quo
Consequence criteria (to judge
the most significant consequence)
- Speed or pace – effects happened quickly or slowly over time?
- Effectiveness – accepted or resisted? Achieved aims?
- Coherence/consistency – stayed the same or adapted?
- Lead to or connected to other effects
Causation criteria (to judge
the most significant cause)
- Connections to other causes
- Presence in a range of factors
- Level of threat to the status quo
- Trigger – present for a short time, but without it the event or change may not have happened when it did
- Underlying – present for a long time and created the conditions for an event or change to happen
The criteria
you use will depend on the conceptual
focus of the questions and the topic focus
Don’t overdo
it – keep to around 3 criteria for
any one question
For some
questions, you could structure your
answer around the criteria
In reaching
a judgement, you should also evaluate the relative
significance of criteria – for example in judging the extent of change you
might conclude that something which affects all social classes is more
significant than something that lasts a long time (or vice versa!)
