Evaluate one or more explanations of health problems.

Refer to the paper 2 assessment criteria when awarding marks. These can be found under the “Your tests” tab > supplemental materials.

The command term “evaluate” requires candidates to make an appraisal by weighing up strengths and limitations of one or more explanations of health problems. Although both strengths and limitations should be addressed, the discussion does not have to be evenly balanced to gain high marks.

Candidates may evaluate one or more explanations of specific health problems (for example, stress, addiction, obesity, chronic pain, sexual health), or evaluate one or more explanations of health problems in general. Both approaches are equally acceptable.

Explanations of health problems may include, but are not limited to:

• brain's reward pathway explanation of addiction
• genetic vulnerability to addiction
• theory of planned behavior addressing the role of decision making in addiction
• sociocultural explanations of obesity
• General Adaptation Syndrome model as explanation of stress.

Relevant research may include, but is not limited to:

• Newton and De La Graza (2009) study in theory of addiction
• Hammer, Dingle, Ostergren and Partridge (2013) study challenging the biomedical model of addiction
• Reed et al.’s (1999) study of pessimism within AIDS patients
• Kamen and Seligman’s (1987) study of attributional style and health level
• Stunkard et al.’s (1990) study of genetic factors in obesity.

Evaluation may include, but is not limited to:

• methodological and ethical considerations in research related to investigating the explanations
• cultural factors and gender considerations in research related to investigating the explanations
• supporting or contradictory empirical evidence
• alternative explanations
• accuracy and clarity of the concepts
• the application of the empirical findings
• the productivity of the explanation in generating psychological research.

If the candidate addresses only strengths or only limitations, the response should be awarded up to a maximum of [3] marks for criterion D: critical thinking. All remaining criteria should be awarded marks according to the best fit approach.

This was a rather popular question within the option. Most candidates evaluated the biomedical model or theory of planned behaviour of a specific health problem (most popular were stress and addiction). In the majority of cases candidates did a good job evaluating the explanation by providing supporting or contradictory empirical evidence.