How to plan ERQ essays for Paper 1 (DP IB Psychology)

How to plan ERQ essays for Paper 1

• Students often feel daunted about having to write 22-mark ERQ (extended response question) essays

• When faced with an ERQ - which you are given one hour to complete in the exam - you may feel one or more of the following:

  • I have an hour to write this essay - I need to write pages and pages!

  • I know what I want to say but I can’t find the words in writing

  • I can describe the theory/study but I don’t know how to bring in enough critical thinking

  • I don’t know how to structure my response

  • Help!

• The more you practise writing ERQs, the more confident you will feel and the better your essays will be

• Remember that you only need to revise one approach for Paper 1 Section B as you are required to choose one ERQ from the three on offer (Biological Approach; Cognitive Approach; Sociocultural Approach)

  • There is no point in revising critical thinking and evaluation for more than one topic: choose one of the three approaches and centre your revision around that approach

  • An ERQ should be around 800 words long

Essay plans

• What follows are two ERQ essay plans that you can use to help guide your revision

  • Use these plans

    • to help you write the ERQs in question

    • as a guide to help you put together your own ERQ essay plans for other topics across the IB specification

  • Time yourself when writing practice ERQ essays - one hour in total

• Please note that the studies selected per question here have been chosen by the author of this page - you may have covered different studies for each topic in which case just replace the studies used here for the studies you are familiar with

Essay plan: Schema theory

Question: Evaluate research into schema theory [22 marks]

• ‘Evaluate’ requires you to make an appraisal of a theory/study/explanation, weighing up its strengths and limitations

Plan for the introduction:

• What is a schema and how do schemas work to represent packets of information in the mind?  

• Cover assimilation of information into a schema, accommodation of new information

• Identify one strength and one limitation of schema theory e.g., schemas provide a way of understanding a lot of information easily but schemas may ignore information which does not fit into existing schemas 

Plan for the main body of the essay:

Study 1:

• Describe Bartlett  (1932) - the effect of cultural schemas on memory

  • Aim, Procedure, Results, Conclusion

• Explain the strengths of the study

  • Bartlett could ascertain the extent to which cultural schemas influence recall via the use of a culturally unfamiliar story which increases validity

  • The procedure can be replicated which increases reliability (consistency over time can be checked) 

• Explain the limitations of the study

  • The study was conducted in 1930s so it lacks temporal validity (cannot generalise findings to a modern population)

  • Only male UK students were used which reinforces the lack of generalisability

  • Some participants may have had better memory than others - participant variables which decrease validity

  • No control group which lowers reliability

Study 2:

• Describe Bransford & Johnson (1972) - the effects of schema on comprehension of a text depending on title/no title

  • Aim, Procedure, Results, Conclusion

• Explain the strengths of the study

  • Demand characteristics avoided due to task design which increases validity

  • Clear levels of the IV increases reliability, plus the procedure can be replicated to check for consistency

• Explain the limitations of the study

  • Low ecological validity due to the artificial nature of the task (doesn’t reflect how context-dependent schematic activation may work in real life)

  • May be culturally biased as the source material ‘washing clothes’ (lacks cultural relativism)

Plan for the conclusion:

• Research has supported the idea that schemas affect cognitive processes such as memory

• The theory is useful for understanding how people categorise information, interpret information and make inferences and has contributed to our understanding of memory distortions and false memories as seen in Bartlett’s (1932) study

• However some vagueness as to what actually a schema actually is

  • The term is very vague and seems to be a ‘one size fits all’ approach to summarising the ways in which human beings categorise their world

  • The mind is a complex machine which we don’t really know enough about to be fully confident of saying ‘this is schema and this is how they work’: we can only, for the moment, draw inferences

  • It is not yet entirely clear how schemas are acquired in the first place or the exact way they influence cognitive processes 

Essay plan: thinking & decision making

Question: Discuss one or more theories of thinking and decision making  [22 marks]

• ‘Discuss’ requires you to offer a considered and balanced review of a theory/study/explanation that includes a range of arguments, factors of hypotheses. Opinions or conclusions should be presented clearly and supported by appropriate evidence 

Plan for the introduction:

• What is involved in thinking and decision-making (TDM)? 

  • Give some examples of both fast and slow thinking

• Briefly mention the Dual Process Model (DPM) and how it conceptualises TDM

  • What is System 1 (S1) and what is System 2 (S2) - briefly, not too much detail

• Final sentence should state that measuring the variables involved in TDM is difficult as they are not easy to operationalise 

Plan for main body of essay:

Study 1

• Describe Alter et al. (2007) - triggering S2 via use of a disfluent font 

  • Aim, Procedure, Results, Conclusion

• Explain the strengths of the study

  • The CRT is a valid way to investigate the DPM as it involves the use of rational thinking

  • An appropriate sample who would be used to problem-solving

  • A controlled experiment for clear analysis and comparison of results = reliability

  • Procedure can be replicated to check for consistency of findings = reliability

• Explain the limitations of the study

  • Quantitative data lacks explanatory power, reducing validity

  • An artificial task in lab conditions = lack of ecological validity

• A small unrepresentative sample of American students means findings are difficult to generalise

Study 2

• Describe Lerner & Ma-Kellams (2016) - are S1 or S2 thinkers more empathic?

  • Aim, Procedure, Results, Conclusion

• Explain the strengths of the study

  • A diverse sample (increases generalisability) used to using S2 thinking which validates the procedure

  • Qualitative data from interviews which adds insight and increases validity

  • Correlation of high CRT scores with S2 and empathy provides triangulation thus internal validity

• Explain the limitations of the study

  • Extraneous variables e.g. mood/temperament of pps, pre-existing levels of empathy, demand characteristics decrease validity

  • Empathy is a difficult variable to operationalise and measure which lowers reliability

  • S1 and S2 may not work separately, could be on a continuum, so should be studied as such

Plan for the conclusion:

• Research has supported the idea that the DPM may highlight two separate mechanisms for TMD: S1 and S2

• The theory is useful for understanding why people make decisions which may seem reckless i.e. using S1 instead of S2

• The main issue with research in this field is that the variables are difficult to operationalise and measure which makes any findings dubious in terms of scientific validity