Assessment guidance on key questions: This information was kindly provided by the Edexcel Ask the Expert service and shared on the Edexcel Facebook Group.

Key questions can be assessed across any of the Assessment Objectives (AOs) – AO1, AO2, AO3. This means that you could be asked to describe, explain and/or evaluate the materials that you have learnt about for your key question.

Short open questions (1-7 marks) will generally assess a key question using a single AO, e.g. describe your key question or explain your key question or evaluate your key question.

Extended open questions (8 – 20 marks) will assess at least two of the AOs, so if you are asked to explain your key question, you will also gain credit for description, if you are asked to evaluate you will also gain credit for description and evaluation. If they give you a scenario and ask you to respond to that you will gain credit for contextualizing your answer as well (AO2).

Here are some examples of questions that you could be asked, for the sake of creating example the questions have been phrased with relation to clinical psychology, however the question styles are the same for all 4 foundations topics (social, cognitive, biological and learning) , clinical and your option topic, in our case, Criminal.

• Describe the key question you have studied for clinical psychology (AO1)
• Explain the relevance of your chosen key question for clinical psychology to today’s society using theories and/or concepts (AO2)
• Using research evidence, explain the relevance of your chosen key question for clinical psychology to today’s society (AO3)
• Discuss your chosen key question for clinical psychology using theories and/or concepts (AO1 and AO2)
• Assess how far your chosen key question for clinical psychology is relevant to today’s society (AO1 and AO3)
• To what extent is your chosen key question for clinical psychology of relevance to today’s society? (AO1 and AO3)
• Evaluate your chosen key question for clinical psychology (AO1 and AO3)*

*  Evaluate could also assess your chosen key question across AO1, AO2, and AO3 if there is a stimulus material/stem included in the question.

 Preparing for “key question” questions!

In terms of AO1, the following could be considered:

• What is the key question?
• How is the key question relevant for today’s society?
• How is the key question likely to directly affect individuals in today’s society?
• How is the key question likely to affect society as a whole?
• Are there any relevant examples which could help show knowledge of the key question?

In terms of AO2, the following could be considered:

• What theories can be used from the specification content to explain the key question?
• How can the theories explain how the key question developed in today’s society?
• How can the theories explain how to reduce or possibly eliminate the impact of the key question on today’s society?
• Are there any concepts from the specification content that can explain the key question in today’s society?

In terms of AO3, the following could be considered:

• What research evidence can be used from the specification content to support or provide evidence for the key question?
• What research evidence can be used from the specification content to refute or dispute the relevance of the key question for today’s society?
• Are there any methodological flaws in the supporting evidence which could lead to it being questionable support for the key question?

Sample 8 marker:

“Social psychology has been used to explain key questions of relevance to today’s society. Discuss the key question you have studied using concepts, theories and/or research from social psychology. (8)”