One of the biggest changes in the new IB Psychology curriculum (first exams May 2027), is the introduction of six concepts: bias, measurement, causality, perspective, change and responsibility. These concepts are the basis of critical thinking in Paper 1 essays and analysis of an unseen study in Paper 2. With suggested key terms only, how do we teach students these concepts so they’re confident n the exams? In this post, I’ll explain my approach.
Content First
In another post, I’ve explained why the best psychology courses will be built on content (read more). This means when you’re teaching health problems, cognition, learning, relationships, etc., the focus of each lesson should be on the content, not concepts. Why? Students can’t think critically or conceptually about a topic they know nothing about. Focusing on specific, concrete content will give you and your students confidence and will also make it easier to explain concepts.
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Teach Research
Students don’t need to know specific studies. What a relief. However, they still need to understand research in psychology. They’ll be assessed on this directly in Paper 2 (practicals and unseen study). I also think the concepts are best discussed in relation to research methods, not content. Look at the terms – causality, measurement, bias, perspective, change and responsibility. These are far more relevant to research in psychology, rather than content knowledge.
Instead of getting students to memorise individual studies, I would encourage them to understand three key research methods so they can explain how and why these are used in any topic from the contexts: experiments, correlational studies and meta-analyses. This will allow them to show a deeper understanding of the topic and make more meaningful connections to the concepts.
The key terms given for each concept are mostly relevant to research, not the topics themselves. (From the IB Guide)
Concepts as Critical Thinking Extensions
A page from my unit on depression and how I’ve used concepts as critical thinking extensions.
If we focus on the content first, when do we teach the concepts? My first approach is to build them into my lessons as critical thinking extensions for fast finishers. There’s no point asking students to link the content to a concept if they don’t know the content. For example, imagine we’re teaching a lesson on SSRIs as a biological treatment for depression. If a student doesn’t know what an SSRI is, how could they connect it to a concept? By including key terminology relevant for each concept at the end of the lesson as extensions, we’re drip feeding content knowledge at the appropriate time.
One Concept Per Unit
We’ve got four contexts with 2-3 sub-topics in each context to teach. I’ve broken this down into 8 units (see below). For each unit, I’ve chosen just one of the six concepts for the extensions. The idea is to reduce cognitive load and increase repetition of key terms for students. For instance, in my unit on Depression the Critical Thinking Concept tasks are all about “Bias.” This works better than randomly choosing a different concept each lesson, or worse trying to get students to connect each lesson’s content to all six concepts. If you try to teach to every possible exam question, you’ll burn yourself out, your students out and you’ll never get through the content. A far better approach is to select and teach transferable knowledge that students can independently apply to any concept. This is what I’ve tried to do in my critical thinking extensions.
My 8 units are Criminology, Cults, Couples, Memory, Manipulation, Depression, Addiction, Morality and Personality. They’re all directly linked to topics in the contexts. For example, Addiction is “Health Problems.”
Will students be prepared for Paper 1? After all, we can’t expect all students to reach the critical thinking extensions every lesson. So how can they score 6s or 7s? Well dear friend, when we run the calculations, as I have in this blog post, we see that actually the concepts play very little part in getting 7s in Paper 1. But I agree – we do need to teach them directly. One option could be assign conceptual thinking assignments as homework. If you’re using my book, this is pretty easy since each extension has a question built in (and the workbooks have space to write answers). However, there’s another way…
Research Methods Unit
In a 22-25 lesson unit on Research Methods, we can prepare all students for Paper 2 and review concepts for P1 essays.
Years ago I swapped my research methods unit from the start of my course to mid-way through, just before the IA. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. It’s so much easier to talk about research methods when students already know about psychological topics. It’s even easier if they’ve already been reading about specific studies. Teaching the methods before the content felt like building a house by starting with the roof. In my new course, I’ve done the same. Instead of doing the class practicals after each context, I’ve combined them in a standalone research methods unit (see my sample course overview). This is where we can directly teach each of the concepts. This also prepares them for Paper 2, Question 2, where they have to explain how one concept is relevant to their class practical. Now we’re killing multiple birds with one stone: we’re teaching concepts at an appropriate time, preparing for Paper 1 essays and Paper 2 Question 2.
Exam Review: Cheat Code Key Terms
By putting concept lessons in a research methods unit instead of taking up what little course time we have, you can hopefully find 3-5 revision lessons before the exams. This is when I’d select a few cheat code key terms that are relevant to all topics and all concepts. I’ve written one example here showing how “Beneficence” can apply to all topics and the six concepts. Here’s another one: correlational studies. If a student’s aiming for a 6 or 7, it’s not too much to ask that they can describe a simple correlational study and explain how and why it might be used in (almost) any essay topic. Then they can easily link it to any concept. Here’s a quick idea how…
- Measurement: Measures covariables and a correlation coefficient
- Change: Pos and neg correlations are the essence of change
- Responsibility: Ethics in conducting correlational studies (methods and reporting)
- Causality: Correlation does not imply causation – explain why and link to topic.
- Bias: Issues relating to bias in interpreting correlation coefficients, measuring covariables
- Perspective: Only studies two variables – misses other perspectives on the topic
We can do the same for experiments. This gives students confidence they’ll have something to write about for any concept in any essay question. Students capable of getting 7s should be able to make their own conceptual connections based on the specific topic in the question and what you’ve taught them.
So there we have it. If we shift the focus of our course onto the content and carefully select the appropriate times to focus on concepts, we can design a truly awesome IB Psychology course.
After all, students didn’t sign up to Psychology to learn about change, measurement and responsibility – they signed up to learn about themselves and other people. In other words, they want to learn psychology so why not teach them that first?
Travis Dixon is an IB Psychology teacher, author, workshop leader, examiner and IA moderator.