The Class Practicals

The Class Practicals are students’ opportunity to engage directly with research methods while developing ethical awareness. The Practicals can also be scaffolding activities for the Internal Assessment. Whatever you do, you MUST link the Class Practical experience with Paper 2 Section A’s 4 questions.

The primary purpose of Class Practicals is for students to be directly involved in planning, preparing and conducting research studies, in particular an experiment, an interview, a survey, and an observation. The Subject Guide describes in detail what variations of these studies can be conducted, for example a true experiment and a quasi-experiment are OK, a natural and a field experiment are not OK. The Subject Guide also details the ethical requirements to be considered.

Students should complete 4 Practicals and their experience should inform their answers to Paper 2, Section A’s 4 questions, but this doesn’t mean the students must each plan, prepare and conduct 4 studies. Students must be involved to some extent. They may be involved in a study that’s ultimately an in-class demonstration. Perhaps the students are involved in planning and preparations, or maybe they’re members of an ethics committee or perhaps they’re involved as participants or assistant researchers or data collectors. And perhaps they change roles over the 4 different Practicals.

The December 2025 curriculum update, any research method can now be applied to any context. In my opinion though, thinking through the logistics and ethical considerations of each method, the original suggestions are probably best: an experiment in the Learning and Cognition context, a questionnaire in the Human Relationships context, an observation in the Human Development context and an interview in the Health and wellbeing context.

Practicals can be teacher-led or student-led, conducted in-school or out-of-school. Under the Keep It Simple ‘rule’, I strongly recommend strong teacher guidance and in school (in class). The key requirement is meaningful student participation. Students who are participants in a practical gain invaluable perspective to research. ‘How did you feel during the debriefing that your were lied to during the study? The researchers called it reasonable deception – is that how you feel about it?’

The Class Practicals are good preparation for the Internal Assessment, which requires students to write a research proposal rather than conduct actual research. It’s very difficult to propose an experiment, for example, if you’ve never conducted one. After experiencing a Class Practical experiment firsthand, describing a quasi-experiment’s aim, the participant recruitment process, managing variables, addressing ethical concerns… become more achievable. Through the Class Practicals, students will develop better understanding of research design. If they were involved as participants in the Class Practical, students will be better prepared to write about ethical considerations.

Whatever practical you conduct, ensure explicit connections to Paper 2 Section A’s four questions. The Practicals aren’t isolated exercises; they’re preparation for exam questions. The experience should strengthen students’ understanding of ethical considerations, research design, methodological strengths and limitations, and data interpretation.

---