IB Psychology IA: What Do I Need To Know? The Short Answer

The IB Psychology internal assessment asks you to design a research proposal investigating a real-life problem affecting a population of interest.

Both SL and HL students complete the same task. It is worth 24 marks and contributes 30% of your final grade at SL and 20% at HL.

Your report must not exceed 2,200 words and should have four sections:

  • Introduction [6 marks]: Explain the problem, the population affected and relevant research.
  • Research methodology [6 marks]: Explain your proposed method, procedure and ethical considerations.
  • Data collection [6 marks]: Create a data collection tool and explain your decisions and potential challenges.
  • Discussion [6 marks]: Discuss possible findings, their applications, researcher bias and an additional research method.

You do not carry out the proposed research or collect actual data.

The key is being able to explain why your research decisions are appropriate for the problem you want to investigate.

IB Psychology IA: What Do I Need To Know? The Long Answer

Your IA is an opportunity to investigate a psychological problem that interests you and consider how research could help improve people’s lives.

You start with a real-life problem and a population of interest.

A population of interest is a group sharing characteristics that you want to investigate and draw conclusions about. It could be a group within your school, local community or national community.

For example, you might be interested in how examination stress affects concentration among students preparing for their final school examinations.

That gives you a problem, a population and a possible direction for your research.

You then design a proposal explaining how you would investigate it.

The IB is assessing your ability to justify your methodological decisions. You are not expected to design a flawless study. You need to show that you understand your choices, their limitations and their implications.

Criterion A: Introduction [6 marks]

Your introduction needs to establish what you want to investigate and why it matters.

Include:

  • A clearly stated, focused aim or research question.
  • A description of the real-life problem.
  • An explanation of how that problem affects your population of interest.
  • The relevant findings and conclusions of two pieces of research, with clear links to your investigation.


Avoid starting with a topic that is too broad.

“Stress in students” gives you an area of interest, but it does not tell the reader exactly what you intend to investigate.

A more focused research question might be:

“How do students preparing for their final school examinations describe the effects of examination stress on their concentration?”

Your research question should fit the method you intend to use.

The two pieces of research should help explain the problem or inform your proposal. You do not need to reproduce every detail of their procedures unless those details are directly relevant.

Instead, explain:

What did the research find, what did the researchers conclude, and why does that matter for my investigation?

For 5–6 marks, your aim or research question needs to be clear and focused, the impact of the problem on your population needs to be explained, and both pieces of research need to be explained and linked to your investigation.

Criterion B: Research Methodology [6 marks]

You must choose one of the following research methods:

  • Experiment: True or quasi-experiment.
  • Interview: Structured, semi-structured or focus group.
  • Observation: Naturalistic or controlled, overt or covert, participant or non-participant.
  • Survey/questionnaire.


Choose a method that will help you answer your research question.

For example, interviews could help you explore students’ experiences of examination stress in depth. A survey could help you investigate patterns in reported stress and concentration across a larger sample.

You also need to explain your proposed procedure.

Depending on your method, this could include:

  • Your sampling technique.
  • The characteristics of your sample.
  • Your experimental design, if relevant.
  • The setting.
  • What participants would do.
  • How the investigation would proceed.


Do more than list your decisions. Explain why they make sense for this investigation.

Ethical considerations must also be applied directly to your proposal.

For example, if students would be discussing stressful experiences, explain how you would protect their privacy, allow them to skip questions and manage possible distress.

Simply writing “participants will give informed consent” does not show the same understanding as explaining how consent would work for your particular participants and procedure.

For 5–6 marks, explain your choice of method and procedure, and explicitly link relevant ethical considerations to your investigation.

Criterion C: Data Collection [6 marks]

Although you do not collect actual data, you must create one data collection tool.

Depending on your proposal, this could be:

  • A questionnaire.
  • A set of rating scales.
  • An interview schedule.
  • An observation checklist.
  • Another appropriate tool for measuring the behaviour you are investigating.


Include a copy of the tool in your appendix.

For a survey/questionnaire, structured interview or controlled observation, the tool must contain at least five items.

You need to explain the decisions you made when creating it.

For example:

  • Why did you choose those questions or behavioural categories?
  • How have you defined and measured your variables?
  • Why did you choose open or closed questions?
  • Why is your response scale appropriate?
  • How does the tool measure what you intend it to measure?


Be clear about the difference between your research method and your data collection tool. If you use a questionnaire to measure responses within an experiment, the experiment is your method and the questionnaire is your tool.

You must also explain potential challenges when collecting data.

These might include social desirability, participant differences, researcher bias, demand characteristics, order effects or problems with the validity of your tool.

Choose challenges that actually apply to your proposal.

For example, students might underreport examination stress if they think their teachers could see their responses. Explain why that could happen and how it could affect the data.

For 5–6 marks, your tool needs to be appropriate and effective, and your explanations of its design and potential challenges need to be relevant to your investigation.

Criterion D: Discussion [6 marks]

Your discussion brings together what your proposed research could tell us and why that could be useful.

You need to address three things:

  • Potential findings and their implications for policy or practice.
  • How researcher bias might affect your investigation.
  • One additional research method that could increase understanding of the same topic.


Because you have not conducted the study, discuss possible findings. Do not invent results or write as though you have collected data.

For example, if students reported that examination stress disrupted their concentration, what might that suggest for school support or examination preparation?

Explain the connection between the possible finding and the proposed application. Keep your conclusions within what your method could establish.

Researcher bias also needs to be specific.

Your own experiences, cultural background or beliefs might influence your choice of topic, the questions you ask or the way you interpret responses.

If you already believe examination stress harms concentration, could you write questions that encourage students to confirm that belief?

Explain how that bias could affect the investigation.

Finally, discuss a different research method for investigating the same topic.

If your main proposal uses interviews, a survey might help establish how widely the experiences described are shared across a larger sample.

The important point is to explain what the additional method would add to our understanding.

For 5–6 marks, discuss potential findings in detail, explain their implications, discuss how relevant researcher bias could affect the investigation, and explain the usefulness of the additional method.

Are There Rules About What I Can Investigate?

Yes. Your proposal must be psychological, connected to relevant published research and ethically appropriate.

Although the research is hypothetical, you should design it as though it would need approval from an ethics committee.

Some sensitive topics, such as mental health or body image, may be considered in an IA proposal even though they would not be appropriate for a class practical. However, you still need to explain suitable protections for participants.

The guide does not allow proposals involving ingestion or the use of animals.

It also excludes a focus on abuse, self-harm including suicide, pornography, rape or other sexual acts, serial killers or acts of torture.

Other topics may be unsuitable in your local context, so discuss your proposed topic with your teacher early.

What Should I Check Before Submitting My IA?

Make sure that:

  • Your research question, population, method and tool fit together.
  • You explain how the real-life problem affects your chosen population.
  • You explain and link two pieces of research to your investigation.
  • You justify your method and procedural decisions.
  • Your ethical considerations are specific to your proposal.
  • Your data collection tool is included in the appendix.
  • You explain relevant challenges and how they could affect the data.
  • You discuss possible findings and their applications.
  • You discuss how your own bias could affect the investigation.
  • You explain what an additional research method could contribute.


Your title page should include the title of the investigation and word count.

The report must not exceed 2,200 words. Examiners stop reading at that limit.

References and appendices are excluded from the word count, but both must be included. Cite the research and any materials you use appropriately.

You do not need to provide completed consent forms or standardised instructions. The required supporting material is your data collection tool.

My Biggest IA Tip

Keep explaining why.

It is easy to write what you would do:

“I would use semi-structured interviews.”

The stronger explanation connects that decision to your research question:

“I would use semi-structured interviews because they would allow students to describe their experiences of examination stress, while follow-up questions could clarify how those experiences affect concentration.”

Apply that thinking throughout your proposal.

Why this population? Why this method? Why these questions? Why might this challenge affect your findings?

Those explanations show the research understanding the IA is designed to assess.