This section of the assessment rewards students who show creativity and peseverence in their investigation. Has personal interest been shown in the choice of topic, the design the investigation, or the approach to the results analysis?

A first step is to ask, 'where did the for the research question come from?' It doesn't need to be brand new research but there must be sign of independent thought in at least one of these areas; choice of topic, method of the experiment, presentation of results.

Beware, if the experiment is too simple, or if the results are already known before collecting data it will be hard to achieve high marks in the exploration and analysis sections of the investigation. The complexity should be at diploma level and measurements quantitative to an appropriate level of precision.

Personal engagement is judged in a holistic manner, meaning that evidence can be taken from several parts of the IA:

• The choice of topic or the reason why it was chosen, as mentioned above.
• The choice of sources in research for the background section of the exploration.
• Originality in the design of the method, or the apparatus in Exploration.
• Persistence (or resilience) in overcoming difficulties in the collection of the results.
• The quality of the observations made.
• The methods used to analyse the data collected.
• The type of comments written in the evaluation about limitations, improvements or extensions to the experimen.

The different strands of this criterion can be separated as in the table below.