IB Psychology

What is Psychology?

The answer to ‘what is psychology’ starts with focusing on three behavioural approaches: the biological, cognitive, and sociocultural approaches. The four options or areas are abnormal psychology, developmental psychology, health psychology, and the psychology of relationships, which help in a better understanding of the approaches. The three approaches in IB Psychology are interconnected in analysing the comparison of each other’s behaviours.

The approaches help in conducting research with the use of qualitative and quantitative tools. The research investigation involves the design, implementation, analysis, and evaluation across multi-cultures. 

Syllabus for IB Psychology

The syllabus of IB Psychology HL/SL is outlined with topics covered in the stipulated instruction hours.

IB Psychology HL outline

IB Psychology HL outline deals with core, options, and IA.

The core is of 120 instruction hours covering the following topics:

• Biological approach to understanding behaviour
• Cognitive approach to understanding behaviour
• Sociocultural approach to understanding behaviour
• Approaches to researching behaviour involves 60 teaching hours.

The options are taught for 40 hours which involve:

• Abnormal Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Health Psychology
• Psychology of human relationships

The IB Psychology internal assessment (IA) HL has experimental study for 20 hours.

The IB Psychology HL is for 240 hours. 

IB Psychology SL outline

IB Psychology SL outline deals with core, options, and IA.

The core is of 90 instruction hours covering the following topics:

• Biological approach to understanding behaviour
• Cognitive approach to understanding behaviour
• Sociocultural approach to understanding behaviour
• Approaches to researching behaviour involves 20 teaching hours.

The options are taught for 20 hours which involve:

• Abnormal Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Health Psychology
• Psychology of human relationships

The IB Psychology internal assessment (IA) HL has experimental study for 20 hours.

The IB Psychology HL is for 150 hours. 

Psychology studies

The IB psychology studies covers a comprehensive range of approaches. The biological approach deals with the brain and behaviour, hormones and behaviour, genetics and behaviour for IB Psychology HL and SL. However, IB Psychology HL covers the role of animal research in understanding human behaviour in addition.

The cognitive approach to understanding behaviour in IB Psychology HL and SL deals with the cognitive processing, reliability of cognitive processes, and emotion and cognition. However, IB Psychology HL covers the cognitive processing in the digital world in addition.

The sociocultural approach to understanding behaviour deals with individuals and the group, cultural origins of behaviour and cognition, cultural influences on individual attitudes, identities, and behaviour for both IB Psychology HL and SL. IB Psychology HL covers the influence of globalization on individual identities, attitudes, and behaviour.

IB Psychology assessment

While the approaches to research are applied to both IB Psychology HL and SL, the HL students are formally assessed on the approaches to research in paper 3.

Out of the four options in the areas of IB Psychology, SL candidates study one and HL candidates study two options in IB Psychology. The options are assessed in Paper 2. While SL candidates write one essay, HL candidates study two essays-one from each of the options studied.

Common mistakes to be avoided in IB Psychology

Based on the subject report which IB publishes, you get a complete understanding of the common mistakes you commit and which are to be avoided.

For IB Psychology Paper 1

• Avoid using general example to a specific human behaviour.
• Do not leave any concept introduced as unexplained. 
• For short answer questions you need not use your evaluation skill.
• Reflective and evaluative skills are to be used for essay type questions.

For IBDP Psychology Paper 2

• Do not leave any concept introduced as unexplained.
• For IB Psychology HL, the first two questions may not be evaluative unlike the third one.

Research methods used in IB Psychology

Research methods in IB Psychology exposes you to handle the research studies involved in the investigation of the psychological phenomena. Starting from the quantitative methods to a wide range of qualitative methods-all give you a deeper insight to the psychological phenomena.

When you work with the quantitative research methods like laboratory experiments, as researchers you need to be utmost careful in the manipulation of the independent variable. To ensure a controlled environment set up, you get to be very vigilant in controlling the extraneous variables, such that at no point of time they become confounding ones to interfere with the independent (IV) and dependent variables (DV). Let’s consider the research method with quasi-experiments. You might evaluate the challenges in manipulating the IV.

For the qualitative research methods, you may adopt the interviews as tool. Keep in mind that while interviews serve as the research methodologies with the first hand data, they might be time consuming and inflicted with the reflexivity of the researcher. Reflexivity in such cases are pretty obvious, where the accuracy of the data results is impacted by the perspective of the researcher.

How to get a 7 in IB Psychology?

How to get a 7 in IB Psychology is a curious question of many IB students? Remember not to tax yourself with more than one section out of three sections on each of the three approaches. With this tip you are secured with 30 marks out of 46. Grab confidence in studying one of the levels of analysis across each of the IB Psychology options. This secures a straight 22-mark question from one psychology option for SL and two 22 marks questions from two psychology options for HL.

The above facts and figures of 2020 shared by the IBO shows that a consistent effort makes it possible to score good in IB Psychology. However, scoring a perfect 7 is a task, where students require a solid expert support and guidance through IB courses online and online tutoring for the IB Diploma Programme.

IB Psychology IA 

IB Psychology IA for IB Psychology SL is a report on experimental study of 22 marks worth of 25% of the score, while for IB Psychology HL the IA is based out of 22 marks or 20% of the score. Precisely talking of the personal engagement or relevance of the investigation, identifying the link between theory and investigation in a controlled environment, and identifying the relation between the independent variable (IV) and dependent variable (DV), are some of the requirements and recommendations for a successful IB Psychology IA.