Outline and Evaluate Bowlby's Theory of Attachment

Review of essay

Rating: 4 star(s)

Response to the question

This is a sound response that satisfies the demands of the questions nicely. The mark scheme would be looking for the candidate to satisfy AO1 (knowledge and understanding) and AO2 (critical evaluation) and there is evidence of both here. The candidate's essay structure is also very good, consulting their knowledge of Bowlby's theories to concern the "Outline" part of the question and then going on to a critical evaluation that cites empirical evidence for the support and refutation of Bowlby's theories in order to concern the "Evaluate" section. All in all the response is an organised and competent approach to tackle the question.

Level of analysis

The Level of Analysis shown here is indicative of a confident psychology student. The candidate writes fluently, using many appropriate psychological terms to fortify their answer with knowledge and precision, and makes many good references to psychological research (Scheffer & Emmerson, Harlow, Belsky & Rovine), which will help indicate to the examiner that the candidate is capable of assisting their answers with objective empirical evidence relating to the question.

The detail in the first section would be sufficient enough to assist even those not aware of Bowlby's theories to garner a fair understanding and comprehension of them, but some information is slightly erroneous and/or is subjected to poor Quality of Written Communication, leading to a misinformation of some parts of the theories, e.g. "Attachment also fosters independance rather than independance", which doesn't aid the answer in any way.

Quality of writing

The Quality of Written Communication in this answer is debatable. The candidate does not appear to have implemented a spell-check into her answer, leading to frequent typos - some minor (e.g. "becuase", hhas" "primaryattachment"); others are more detrimental to the clarity of her written expression (e.g. the aformentioned example, " This induces monotropy, one relationship that the infant hhas with their primaryattachment figure is of special significance") These are perfect examples to ensure a proof-read is conducted, as we all make writing and typing errors without realising. Failure to do this will result in low QWC marks.