Purpose
This project was inspired by my research on the importance of routine.
We are going to learn about health psychology through a self-experimentation project. With school closed and all of us turning to online learning, it’s easy to break our routines and fall into bad habits.
Read more:
- Health Project Week 4
- Health Project Week 3
- Health Project Week 2
- Health Project Week 1
- Health Self-Experimentation Project Intro
- The Importance of Routine
Summary
You are going to conduct an experiment with the aim of seeing how health habits affect you psychologically. You’ll collect data on these habits and conduct a self-experimentation to make positive changes.
Along the way, you’ll also do some readings and some research on things that might affect your health. You’ll also be doing some reflections on the IB Psychology course and what you’ve learned.
Overview
Download the student workbook for the online health option.
This project is designed to take 4 weeks. See above for links to specific instructions for each week.
Week 1 Control Condition: You’re going to collect data on your health habits and their effects without changing anything from your normal routine. This is the control condition.
Week 2 Treatment Condition: After looking over your data from Week 1, you’re going to set some goals to make some changes to your routines and habits and measure their effects. This is the manipulation of your IV and is the treatment condition.
Week 3 Analysis and Report: You’re going to compare the results of the two weeks and draw some conclusions.
Week 4 Interviews: You’re going to conduct semi-structured qualitative interviews on a sample of your classmates to discuss their experiences throughout this project to understand their experiences of trying to improve their health habits.
Travis Dixon is an IB Psychology teacher, author, workshop leader, examiner and IA moderator.