In the new IB Psych curriculum we’ve been given 45 hours to teach “data analysis and interpretation.” No thanks. I’ll have a hard enough time staying awake in that let alone my students. Here’s a workaround that will give you 20 extra hours in your course.
IB Psychology curriculums are convoluted and complicated beasts. Luckily, they’re filled with loopholes we can exploit for our own gains. The huge amount of time (90 hrs) given to the HL extensions for surprising lack of content means we can still teach these well and use the leftover time elsewhere in the course.
The 90 extra hours of HL time is to cover the three extensions (motivation, culture and technology) and 45 hours for the “data analysis and interpretation.” Could you imagine teaching stats for 45 hours, on top of the 30 hours you’ve already covered in the four class practicals and 20 hours in the IA? In an HL course that’s 40% research methods. No thanks.
Here’s how I plan on teaching HL. In this post, I’ll focus just on the research methods part of Paper 3. In future posts I’ll explain my big plans for motivation, tech and culture.
HL courses have plenty of extra time to find. SL courses, sadly, will be crammed. The only option is to cut back (or cut out) a context like Development. That would free up 20 hours.
Cut 45 hours to 25
The curriculum overlooks the fact we need class time for things like practice tests, real tests and mock exams, let alone class time to revise for these kinds of things and to teach students how to write exam answers. My advice is to use 20 hours from the HL extensions for revision and teach a 25 lesson unit on Psychological Research Methods for HL students only. This could be spread out over the course if you have HL only classes every week, or could be a big chunk of HL only time at the end of the course, depending on your timetabling.
- Research Methods (6 lessons)
- A six lesson topic that reviews the major research methods. Use the same studies you’re using in the contexts.
- Sampling Techniques (2)
- A two lesson topic on common sampling methods.
- Data Analysis and Interpretation (5)
- Graphs, stats and thematic analysis.
- Research Considerations (10)
- Evaluating studies – this is key. This is where understanding how to evaluate studies can be used to cover any of the BIG SIX.
- Practice Exam (2)
This unit is designed to start with the basics, and then by the end you’ve got the complicated stuff.
Of course, you could double the time spent on all of this content, but personally I’d rather not. I need that 20 hours for other things like teaching them how to write SAQs, essays, Paper 2 responses, practice papers and assessments.
Similarly, I don’t think we need 45 hours to cover the three HL extensions of motivation, technology and culture to cover one question in Paper 3 (Qu3). I’ll explain in later posts and videos some more interesting and effective uses of that time.
Travis Dixon is an IB Psychology teacher, author, workshop leader, examiner and IA moderator.