This module is about the decisions you make before you start collecting evidence: what exactly you are asking, who and when it concerns, and how much you can realistically do. Clear choices here make later work on sources, claims and perspectives much easier to organise. Check the Cambridge subject page listed under sources for the exact skills your course assesses.
You need no subject knowledge to begin, only a willingness to read your own wording carefully. The examples are invented, and no one is asked to take a side on any real issue.
What does a good question look like? An orienting example
All details are invented for teaching.
Theme: screen time.
Too wide: “Is screen time bad?” It has no group, period or measure, and “bad” is a judgement.
Too leading: “Why does screen time ruin sleep?” It assumes the answer.
Better: What relationship, if any, appears between evening screen hours and reported sleep among Form 4 students at one fictional school during one term?
Check scope: the group is Form 4 students at one school, the period is one term, and the measure is reported sleep. Any claim from the evidence should be limited to that group and period.
Check the plan: with 12 hours available, school-level records and a short survey might fit, and a published-source back-up would be ready if replies do not come.
That one example touches all four lessons.
In what order should you study the lessons?
- Turn a broad theme into an answerable question. Start here, because the other three skills all work on a question you already have.
- Separate an issue from a predetermined conclusion. It checks whether the wording of your question already decides the answer.
- Define the population and period a claim concerns. It fixes who and when, and teaches you to cut a claim down to its evidence.
- Plan manageable research without promising access to participants. It turns the question into a plan that survives if people do not reply.
Then use the practice set to mix all four.
What traps catch most students?
- A theme dressed as a question. “Plastic pollution” or “How can we fix pollution?” has no group, place or period.
- A loaded verb. Words like “harm”, “ruin” and “prove” carry the answer inside the question.
- A claim wider than the sample. One school, one week, becomes “teenagers” with no limit.
- A plan that needs luck. An interview that may not happen is not a foundation.
How should you use the practice set?
Work through the integrated practice after you have read at least two lessons. Write your own answers in full sentences before opening the worked answers.
The last section of the set tells you which lesson to reread for each error type. If you want to see where this module sits in the whole course, return to the Global Perspectives subject guide.
Many students can recite what makes a good question yet still write a loose one under time pressure. That gap is where online one-to-one Global Perspectives tuition can help, because a teacher can watch you write and ask the question that exposes the weak part.