How do I use evaluation (AO3) in an exam response?

So, you may be taking a subject (for A Level, IB, GCSE, another exam board) which will require you to use effective evaluation to nail those high marks. I'm a Psychology teacher and I know that evaluation is one of the most challenging skills that students face, particularly in the stressful environment of an exam room when the heart is beating faster than usual, you get the shakes and your sweat starts to drip onto the exam paper (okay, a bit dramatic but you get the picture).

Evaluation (by which I mean assessing the strengths and limitations of a theory/concept/study/explanation/idea) does not have to be an uphill, impossible task - as long as you are prepared to put the work in you will find that it becomes second-nature after a while (stop shaking your head and telling me I'm wrong...)

Evaluation is a type of critical thinking - not simply accepting the terms/claims/attitude/perspective of a theory/concept/study/explanation/idea but holding it up to the light and asking, 'What's wrong with this? What's right with this? Are there are other ways to view this?'

I can only really give you some solid examples from Psychology but you may well be able to take these examples, tweak them a bit and apply them to other subjects that you study. Okay, here goes:

Tip #1: If you are evaluating, say a theory, it's not enough to state that, 'X theory uses a biological approach to explain attraction'...so far this is not evaluative, you get me? To make this point evaluative you must then explain why this is a strength/limitation e.g. 'X theory uses a biological approach, one strength of which is that this approach uses objective criteria to measure attraction such as brain activity via measured via an fMRI scan or blood tests to measure hormone levels. These clinical measures tend to generate reliable quantitative data, particularly if the sample of participants is large'.

Tip #2: A really good evaluation will take a strength/limitation and flip it over into a limitation/strength (giving you two for the price of one), for example: 'One limitaiton of using questionnaires in research is that people may lie in their responses or succumb to social desirability bias which would invalidate the measure. However, a strength of participants providing a personal reponse on a questionnaire is that they are best placed to know their own minds and to give an individual response rather than being manipulated by a researcher as happens in lab experiments.' Do remember though, to read the question: if the question asks for only one strength or limitation then don't provide more than one!

Tip #3: If you are answering a longer-length, higher-value exam question then you need to deepen your evaluation and develop/extend the points you make. It's not enought to state, for example, 'Loftus & Palmer's (1974) study into eye-witness testimony uses an unrepresentative sample'. This statement on its own needs to be developed in order to add value to your response e.g: 'The sample was unrepresentative as it comprised only 45 students from Washington State university who were aged around 20 years old. This is an example of sample bias as the results cannot be generalised to other age groups, non-Washington students, non-university students, other cultural groups. Additionally it is likely that this sample would have no to limited driving experience which means that their estimation of speed in miles per hour may have simply been guesswork and not due to the manipulation of the independent variable'.

I hope this tips have been helpful. More from me to come!