The HL Advantage: Why HL IB Psych is easier to teach than SL

Is Higher Level IB Psychology now easier than SL? Perhaps it’s not for the students, but in this post I’ll explain why I’d much rather teach HL than SL in this new course. We’ll break down the distinctions and how we can make the most out of the extra HL time. 

In my previous post, I outlined the dramatic increase in content in Paper 1 for IB Psych students in the new curriculum (first exams May 2027). To summarise, we now have 46 topics to cover in 100 hours, whereas previously we had more time to cover much less content. Also, since Paper 1 and Paper 2 are now identical for SL/HL students, this has made the SL IB Psych course dramatically more difficult.

To review, in the new curriculum, all students need to know all of the topics in the approaches and the contexts. Similarly, in Paper 2 they need to know research methods in the class practicals and be prepared to write about concepts regarding an unseen study. This means SL students also need a thorough understanding of research methods. On top of this, the IA is identical for both SL and HL. The result is an SL course of 150 hours that’s jam packed with content knowledge coupled with the requirement of understanding research methods and developing conceptual understanding. To put it in bullet points:

• 27 approach topics
• 39 essay topics
• 6 concepts
• 4 research methods
• 4 class practicals

All in 150 hours. If that seems like plenty of time, you can read in this post why it really isn’t.

The HL Advantage

For the HL course, we’re given 90 extra hours to prepare students for Paper 3:

• 45 hours HL extensions (culture, motivation and technology)
• 45 hours data analysis and interpretation

In the old curriculum, we were also given 90 hours for HL extensions. However, these were spread over Paper 1 essay extensions and Paper 3. In my mind, this was more demanding than the new Paper 3 questions.

 

HL Extensions (Tech, Cog and Mot)

This 90 hours is a godsend for teachers struggling with the amount of content jammed into Paper 1. Firstly, we can use the 45 hours class time to cover the HL extensions while at the same time reviewing (and developing) content knowledge for Paper 1. For instance, my first HL extension lesson for Technology is about media and violence (in Human Relationships). This is used to review social learning theory and extend student knowledge of the topic as it applies to video games and violent movies. In doing so, HL students get to review Paper 1 content, learn new and interesting stuff and prepare for Paper 3, all at the same time. If we plan our HL extensions carefully, we can do this for all three extensions. This is exactly what I’ve tried to do in my course.

But I only planned each extension to be 9-10 lessons long – 30 hours total. Why? I want to use the remaining 15 hours elsewhere in my course, like in studying research methods, class practicals and exam revision. I know this is enough time because knowledge of these extensions are relevant to only one prescribed question in the entire Paper 3 exam. That’s 45 hours of time to prepare for one question. What’s even better is that students must use three of the provided sources to answer this question. That means they’re given the information in the sources to write about. Now, the mark scheme does say they must use their own knowledge to interpret these sources, and that’s where content knowledge comes in. However, as teachers we know the pressure is off when it comes to preparing students for this question. Why? There’s no way we can know exactly what specific content knowledge will be relevant to the sources in the booklet. The sources will be findings from specific studies – just think how many studies there are on technology in Psychology.

So while on the one hand this makes it very difficult, if not impossible to prepare students perfectly for this question, selfishly it means everyone’s in the same boat and provided we’ve done our best to teach extension-relevant content in relation to the four contexts we can rest easy knowing there’s nothing much more we can do. We’ve covered our butts.

HL Data Interpretation and Analysis

Similarly, we don’t really need 45 hours to prepare for the other three questions in Paper 3. I mean, we do, but I think that’s more time that’s better spent doing other things. There’s content knowledge required, but more important is the application of the knowledge to the source material. In my mind, the best way to teach students this content will be with exam-style practice questions. That means students are learning and preparing for the exam-specific questions at the same time. This is very different to Paper 1 which has three types of exam questions and spans three approaches, four contexts and six concepts – incredibly difficult to prepare for. In fact, my unit for HL students to cover this content is only 13 lessons long. This is by design so the bulk of this unit will be spent applying that knowledge to exam-style questions.

In the old course we were given 40 hours to prepare for Paper 3. Now it’s 90. Even if we spend 60 hours, I think 60 hours it’s plenty of time for the new Paper 3. This is how we can free up 30 hours to spend reviewing and revising for the other exams. SL students have no such luxury.

An interesting trend over the past three curriculums is the increasing focus on research methods. In 2010, the curriculum had Paper 1 Core, Paper 2 Options and Paper 3 was research methods. There were some learning outcomes included in the core and options on research methods, but it wasn’t over the top. Then in 2017 we saw research methods and ethics included alongside all the topics for approaches and options. Now we see research methods replacing Paper 2 as the primary focus, rather than applied Psychology (Options).

Can I make a suggestion? I like and understand the rationale behind the old structure – the approaches to psychology are where the knowledge is discovered, challenged and created. Most in university laboratories psychologists take these different approaches to devise theories and test them. Then field psychologists take that knowledge and apply it – clinical, educational, health, forensic etc. But underlying all this knowledge and its applications is the fundamental question – How do we know? This is then aligned across the curriculum in Core, Options and Research, as well as in Paper 1, Paper 2 and Paper 3. I’d like to see us go back to that simpler, more intuitive structure.

Now I realise this is highly hypocritical of me since for the past 8 years I’ve been advocating skipping the approaches altogether and combining them with options so the logical distinctions I’ve outlined above disappear. However, over the past four years I’ve been forced to teach approaches and options differently in the NZ curriculum and I’ve come to appreciate making the conceptual distinction. Would it change how I teach IB Psych? Well, let’s go back to the old way and see.