Formulation of a KQ for my presentation :( please help

[Sarah Posch]

For my TOK presentation i am talking about how Violence in Video Games changes the behavior in children. My areas of knowledge are Human sciences--> psychology and ethics my ways of knowing are intuition and imagination. I am so confused about this whole thing and i need help. I already started by saying " In what ways would Intuition and Imagination aid us " but from there i have no idea how to move on. My teacher told me my knowledge question should be able to be applied anywhere like Chemistry maths etc. How the hell should i do that (( 

[OMGIBISFUN]

I feel you, I remember last year when I was in your position. ToK in general can seem quite abstract, and trying to formulate a presentation with vague terms like "knowledge question" and applying it to chemistry etc. can seem an impossible task. 

 

Try to think about it more pragmatically, you don't have to reinvent the wheel in your presentation.

 

You could argue that using emotion and intuition to analyse the relationship between violence in video games and child behaviour, it is very easy to draw links and conclusions between the two. (You could even ask your audience, if they think so). 

 

You can then proceed to argue that by using reason instead, and by looking at the relevant statistics and research which do show that there is NO correlative or causal relationship between violence in video games and violence in real life. 

 

Furthermore, you could discuss about the validity of statistics themselves, and how EVEN IF there was a correlation between the two, that does not imply causation. 

 

You really have to build your presentation around a real life situation though, you could choose a case where a young person was killed and the parents are blaming it on violence in video games. You could then argue why the anger and resentment in the parents would translate to overwhelming emotion and intuitive thinking, rather than a reasoned approach. This would allow you to delve in to the strengths and weaknesses of each way of knowing. (Same goes to how they then apply to your areas of knowledge, and which one is more applicable)

[Blackcurrant]

Remember that this is not a conventional essay/presentation where you lay out an argument explaining the effects of video games or trying to show if they do have an effect. It won't be an "information session" approach.

 

As your teacher quite correctly points out ( though perhaps not very helpfully if you are floundering) you need to see your topic as a way of talking about knowledge, which can be as broad as "how do we know something", "what counts as knowledge", etc.

 

So for your video gaming, you could start thinking broadly in terms of "how can anyone 'know' if something is harmful or not?" Your topic (video games) begs the question. Notice, though, how the question is not limited to or restricted to "video games" -- it can be applied very broadly to other topics or fields. Your topic is therefore sufficiently abstract. It is also asking about knowledge.

 

What counts if something is harmful or not will vary on the AOK, which invites you to discuss your issue from different perspectives. There will be implications to each perspective too.

 

So just remember: the presentation is not about presenting information or telling us what you found out about a topic. It is more about flexible thinking. And (among other things) thinking about how we come to decide what is real, true, valuable etc.

 

Have you seen previous essays or presentations? That can help a lot.

Edited May 11, 2015 by Blackcurrant