Practical Work and Internal Assessment
The practical rewards method, not decoration. Marks come from a clear objective, a matching tool, tabulated data and an honest conclusion.
What is assessed
A school-assessed internal component together with a practical examination conducted with an external examiner: project or practical file, viva, and internal assessment covering attendance, unit tests, project work and classroom participation.
Project steps
Select a problem; state objectives; review what is already known; frame a hypothesis or research question; choose tools (observation schedule, questionnaire, interview, standardised test); select a small sample; collect and tabulate data; analyse; interpret; write conclusions with limitations; list references. Ethics: informed consent, confidentiality, anonymity, no harm.
Typical practicals
Administering an intelligence, interest or personality test; a case study of a learner; a survey of study habits; sociometry to map classroom choices; observation of a child's behaviour; an action research cycle on a classroom problem.
Worked example
Project: "Study habits of Class XI students." Reasoning: define study habits as observable behaviour; build a short questionnaire on time-table, note-taking, revision and distraction; administer to 30 students; tabulate; compute simple percentages; compare groups; state the limitation of a small single-school sample. Marks are lost where the tool does not match the objective.
Traps
Writing conclusions with no data; copying a published project; leaving raw data untabulated; preparing the file but not the viva; omitting limitations and references; ignoring consent and confidentiality.