Biology Quiz - Unit 4 - Evaluating (Answers)
Throughout your experiment or investigation you should constantly be evaluating. Evaluating involves assessing how the experiment is going as you carry it out, how you feel it went and what could have been improved if it was to be carried out again. Evaluating is an important part of the scientific method and your written evaluation comes at the end of the experimental write-up, usually as a part of the conclusion. In this GCSE Biology quiz we look at the purpose of evaluations.
Whilst carrying out your investigation, you may find that some of the ideas you had are not working well. You may wish to make changes in order to improve your method. If you do, then you should mention it in your evaluation. It is a sign of a good scientist and you will receive credit for explaining why you changed your plan. Even if you didn't change plan, saying in the evaluation any changes that you could have made to improve the method you used will gain you some credit.
[readmore]Part of evaluation is spotting any results that are anomalous. These are results that don't fit the pattern. If you have the opportunity, you can repeat these parts of your experiment, otherwise you can discard them. Even if you do neither of those things, at least mention them and say why you think they are anomalous (e.g. they are too high or low to fit the pattern). Candidates taking the higher tier should then be able to decide how reliable the results are and if they are sufficiently good quality to support the conclusion.
Finally, to gain credit at the very highest level, you should decide on what you could do to extend your experiment to get additional evidence relevant to the investigation and write in your conclusion a plan of action for an experiment to carry out the extra research.
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You can find more about this topic by visiting BBC Bitesize - Practical skills
To gain top marks, you should be evaluating the experiment as you go along, even if you don't write anything down until the end
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It is about spotting possible weaknesses in an experiment that could lead to unreliable results and strengths that give you confidence in your results
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Evaluations are found at the end of the write-up. They can be part of the conclusion or a separate section, whatever suits you best
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The other answers are less logiccal ways of writing a report and this is the format that will be expected if you study biology at higher levels or publish research reports
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No set of results are perfect
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Successful evaluations can work out what went wrong and lead to improvements
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The strengths of an experiment can be used to show that your results are valid and reliable
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An evaluation will tell you if this is the case
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The world's best scientists always evaluate their experiments to try to make sure that other scientists can't find things wrong and criticise their conclusions
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Some people see evaluation as a negative skill. It is not. It is a very important skill to have and getting into the habit of evaluating your biology experiments will help you to develop this skill for use when you are an adult
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