What this lesson teaches
I can explain how globalisation creates both job opportunities and job challenges for individuals.
Syllabus K336, Issue 3, Guiding Question 2, Economic impacts of globalisation. Employment opportunities and challenges experienced by individuals
Make a guess
A company's sales report shows strong orders. Do you think it is useful as evidence about its workers' lives?
- Very useful, because a company's records show how it runs.
- A little, as it was not written to describe workers' lives.
- Not useful, because a company report is one-sided.
Show the answer
A little, as it was not written to describe workers' lives.
A source is useful for what it can reliably show. Its purpose explains what it leaves out, such as working conditions.
A source is useful for what it can reliably show about the question. Show its content, test it, then explain its limits.
Usefulness questions ask "How useful is Source G as evidence about...?" They are usually worth 6 or 7 marks.
Start with content: what does the source tell you about the question? Then test that content by cross-referencing another source. A source is useful only if its information can be trusted.
The top levels add provenance and purpose: who made it, why, and what that means it may leave out. A company's sales report is useful about its own orders, but less useful about workers' lives, because that was not its purpose.
- Useful for what?
- Name what the source is useful as evidence of, then test it and give its limit.
Worked example: The usefulness ladder
Source G, a sales director's report to managers, says an overseas customer cut orders from 4,000 to 2,400 and overtime was reduced.
- Level 1, provenance only: "It is useful because it is written by a director."
- Level 2, content: "It is useful because it shows that a fall in overseas demand cut workers' overtime."
- Level 3, cross-reference: "Its figures are believable because a worker in another source also mentions shorter hours."
- Top level, content plus CR plus provenance: "It was written for managers to plan work, not to persuade, so it has little reason to inflate figures. But it does not say how workers felt, so it is less useful about their experience."
Watch out for this
A source is useless because it is one-sided.
Even a one-sided source is useful evidence of its author's view or aims. Say what it is useful for and where its use stops.
Check your understanding
A government poster urges people to save water. What is it most useful as evidence of?
- Little, because posters are a form of propaganda.
- What the government wanted people to do.
- How much water households actually saved.
Show the answer
What the government wanted people to do.
Right. A poster is strong evidence of its maker's aims and message.