Teaching Sociological Skills: Application (1)

If you were to ask a room full of sociology teachers which skills their students least understand, the response would almost unanimously be ‘application’. Analysis of the most recent exams sat in May and June suggest that it is the skill of application that students really struggle with, and perhaps that is because many teachers are not always aware of what the exam boards look for when they are marking for application. With mark schemes moving to bands rather than awarding AO1/AO2/AO3 it becomes even more difficult to see where students are going to score marks for application. With 33% of the marks being awarded for this skill at A Level, it is more important than ever that we understand how to score these marks.

There are three specific ways in which application can be awarded:

1. Material drawn from an item
2. Application to the question
   
3. Application of material that is not commonly taught together

In the next post, I will be looking more closely at these three areas.