Back to the regularly scheduled programing and the continuation on my series about the extended essay. In my latest post which you can read here, I talk about questions that do not lead to a good extended essay for a variety of reasons. And while it is important to focus on what NOT to do, it is important to look at good examples as well.
So here are four examples of questions that got either an A or a B.
What factors turned around both sales and profits between 2012 – 2017 in McDonald’s India?
This is a good question because it is focused on a country and a timeframe. The student realized that McDonald’s in India wasn’t doing well in the early 2000s, but saw sales growth from 2012-2017 and wanted to explore how they were able to turnaround falling sales. It was well-researched and interesting to the student and ended up getting a good grade.
How will the U.S ban of Huawei affect the company´s overall profitability?
This is a good question because it is looking at one event and using past data of other bans and information from the company to make predictions about what will happen in the future. The student was able to look at a lot of articles on the topic from both sides and make their own conclusion based on different tools and theories from the course and analyzing graphs and sales trends.
To what extent did market-orientation enabled by the use of analytics positively impact Glossier’s sales performance?
This is a good question because it focuses on a theory/practice that has been researched (market-orientation) and has a strong theoretical base. In addition, this research question developed over time as the student researched and learned more about the company. It didn’t start out with an analytics focus, but as they learned more about it, they added it as a component of the research question. This just shows the importance of adapting as you go and not sticking to the first research question you have.
To what extent do annual collaborations with high-fashion brands benefit H&M in the long-term?
This is a good question because again, it focuses on something that has been studied by experts (collaborations) and has a very well-known company with a lot of information written about it. It probably could have been better if “benefit” was changed out for something more concrete, but the student wanted to look at all of the benefits and not just profit or sales.
It is important to note, however, that these extended essays got top marks not only because of their good questions, but the analysis, research and hard work that went into it throughout the process. I have seen good questions that also get low grades because the content within is not well written.
What are some of the good questions you have seen in your time as a teacher? What made them good? Let me know in the comments below.
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