Physics Coursework: Planning

Physics Coursework: Planning

Up to 8 marks are available for planning your practical investigation.

As with the other 3 areas of assessment, the criteria you have to meet are hierarchical - you must achieve the lower marks before you can be awarded marks higher up.

The Planning Criteria

The table below indicates the criteria your work will be marked against. Failing to outline even the most basic of procedures would mean that you could not score P.2a, and as a result would score zero for the plan.

P.2a outline a simple procedure

P.4a plan to collect evidence which will be valid

P.4b plan the use of suitable equipment or sources of evidence

P.6a use scientific knowledge and understanding to plan and communicate a procedure, to identify key factors to vary, control or take into account, and to make a prediction where appropriate

P.6b decide a suitable extent and range of evidence to be collected

P.8a use detailed scientific knowledge and understanding to plan and communicate an appropriate strategy, taking into account the need to produce precise and reliable evidence, and to justify a prediction when one has been made

P.8b use relevant information from preliminary work, where appropriate, to inform the plan

Writing a Plan

Most people don't finish writing the plan until after they've done the whole investigation! It is a very good idea to produce a rough plan of what you intend doing before you start - teachers should demand this.

Most of the marks come from talking about equipment and discussing science that applies to what you are going to investigate. Let's see what sorts of things you need to include to get the marks.

Stating What To Do

Get up to 8 marks just for planning what you are going to do! Here we show one way of doing it.

As with the other 3 areas of assessment, the criteria you have to meet are hierarchical - you must achieve the lower marks before you can be awarded marks higher up.

The Planning Criteria

In physics it's normally obvious what equipment you can and can't use. Also, looking up a basic scientific theory that might apply to your investigation is easy. You simply must make sure you use it. Here we look at an investigation into stretching springs.

P.2a

Getting 2 marks is really easy: you just need to show that you have thought (a little!) about what you're going to do:

That really is enough to score you two marks. Hardly seems worth the effort! But what about 4 marks? That's twice as much...

Get up to 8 marks just for planning what you are going to do! Here we show one way of doing it.

P.4a

In order to get 3 marks, you really need to give a little more detail to the method you intend to use to get your results:

P.4b

For 4 marks, it is considered good form to write a list of the kit you're going to use, even though you may already have discussed some of it. A diagram is also very helpful. So, in addition to the approach to 4a, you should include something like this:

You might want to lable the diagram of course. HINT: only draw it on a computer if you know what you're doing. A hand-drawn diagram is worth just as much!

P.6a

For 6 marks you really need to show some level of understanding about what it is you intend to do! This definitely means being able to write something involving science that you may (or may not) have studied.

Factors that may cause changes in what you intend to measure MUST be listed here. Predicting what you think you might discover is also easily done here by referring to some theoretical work.

In the above plan excerpt, the student has talked about factors that may affect the length of the spring. They have identified what they want to vary (the mass) and noted how to make it a fair test. Some science has been introduced (in this case Hooke's Law) and it has been used to help write a basic prediction. Top stuff!

P.6b

This is rather lame compared to 6a, as all you really need to do is indicate over what range you are going to vary things.

Make sure you know something about variables, however:

Variables are things that you can vary, or that can vary outside of your control. Specifically:

Dependent Variable: this is the thing that will change depending on other things. For example the extension or length of the spring. These both depend on how much mass is added, for example.

Independent Variable: this is the thing that you will be changing, to see its effect on the dependent variable. e.g. the mass added.

Control Variables: these are the independent variables that you identified in P6a that may affect the dependent variable - but you choose NOT to alter them as you are NOT investigating them! Instead you MUST make sure they don't change - if at all possible.

P.8a

Obviously this follows on from what you've done at level 6. Having already looked up Hooke's Law, our star student has some more to say...

As you can see, they've made the bold prediction that they will observe direct proportion, and justified it using Hooke's Law (some real science!). If you're still not sure what this means, check here.

Simple things like repeating and averaging data have been included to help obtan reliable results. Bothering to choose decent equipment to measure things, rather than just what you have to hand, is also a great idea. Just write about it all!

Including a sketch of a graph of what your results should show is also a good idea: it's just another form of prediction. Just make sure you back it up with a scientific basis.

P.8b

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