This had an overall detrimental effect on learning and teaching. There was a much higher level of dissatisfaction in terms of the practicals selected. They were not always good, do not always work, support materials are especially difficult for pupils to understand and improved marking schemes are required. Many respondents thought the experiments worked well. Unit 3 PPA 2 the quantitative electrolysis of an acid is not a good idea.
Some experiments are more difficult to carry out and assess than others.
Marking is very time consuming. O3 assessments are too time consuming and report writing takes up too much class time. Marking information is too vague. There is conflict between teaching the experiment and assessing its report. There is concern that given the time pressures trivial experiments will be chosen.