IB’s made it deliberately impossible to memorise pre-written answers for the essay questions (thankfully). But that doesn’t make them impossible to prepare for. The following advice and examples in this post are designed to help both students and teachers gain confidence despite the uncertainties in Section C.
The IB Psychology essays are tough. They require the ability to combine concepts with content knowledge and sophisticated writing skills to communicate clearly. They’re arguably the hardest questions to prepare for in the IB Psychology course. The 39 topics in the four contexts can be asked in relation to any one of the Big Six concepts. The model essay below shows how basic content knowledge coupled with an understanding of common research methods makes it relatively straightforward to answer these questions.
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Context: Health and Well-being
Prevalence of Health Problems
The learning outcomes for the topic “Prevalence of health problems” are:
- One or more factors that may explain changes in the prevalence of one or more health problems in a population
- One or more factors that may explain differences in the prevalence of one or more health problems between populations.
For context, the essay below is written based on content in Chapter 7: Addiction in IB Psychology: A Student’s Guide (2nd Ed). In this unit, we look at opioid addiction and a range of factors that might explain the rise in opioid abuse over the past 30 years. It’s a hard-hitting unit that deals with the opioid epidemic head on.
The Marking Criteria
What would you give the following essay? Here’s the marking criteria examiners will use when marking essays:
- The demands of the question are addressed.
- Relevant knowledge and understanding of the area of study/concept are fully explained.
- The response contains well-developed critical analysis.
- Links between the area of study and the concept are included throughout the response and fully explained.
- The response argues to a reasoned and clearly stated conclusion that is consistent with the arguments presented.
- There is accurate and precise use of psychological terminology.
- Points are relevant, accurate and detailed.
The Essay
| One health problem that has become more prevalent over the past twenty years is substance abuse. In particular, opioid abuse and addiction has increased in prevalence dramatically in some countries. Psychologists can conduct research into possible reasons for this change in prevalence rates but they have to be responsible in their research. This essay will outline three ways responsibility is relevant to the study of the prevalence of substance abuse. | The intro shows how the question will be answered by…a) identifying the health problemb) stating how the concept will be addressed. |
| One reason substance abuse and opioid abuse is becoming more prevalent could be due to attachment issues. Attachment is the strong emotional bond, usually between a baby and its primary caregiver. People with an insecure attachment are more at risk for addiction, whereas having a secure attachment means you’re less at risk. Interestingly, research shows that in America the % of college students with an insecure attachment increased from the 1980s to the 2010s. This could potentially explain the rise in opioid abuse as well. | The question regarding “prevalence” is being directly addressed. This also sets the platform for the next paragraph about responsibility. |
| Psychologists conduct this research by measuring someone’s attachment style and then their substance use. However, they have the responsibility to make sure their research doesn’t do any harm, physical or emotional, to their participants. Attachment and substance abuse are two personal topics that people might not want to discuss. Someone might also not want to know what type of attachment style they have, especially if they had a difficult childhood and/or bad relationships with their parents. It might rehash old wounds. This is why informed consent is an important step researchers can take to ensure they are following responsible research practices. By telling participants ahead of time what the study will be about, they can make an informed choice about participating or not and can weight up their own pros and cons. | The second line of this paragraph directly states the concept – this helps signpost to the examiner that they are answering the question and focusing on the concept.
The concept is made directly relevant to the topic of prevalence. |
| A second common field of study in the prevalence of opioid abuse is unemployment. Psychologists have found that unemployment is directly correlated with opioid abuse. For example, as unemployment rises so do the rates of opioid abuse and addiction. Two possible reasons for this are the self-medication hypothesis and diet. The self-medication hypothesis posits that people use drugs as a way of self-medicating for the stress of life. Losing your job would be stressful and would probably also cause financial stress and other life stressors, so it could be that people are more likely to self-medicate with opioids and other drugs. A second potential reason is linked to diet – there’s a correlation between having less income and having a worse diet (e.g. the SAD standard American diet). The SAD diet is high in processed foods and also low in important amino acids like tyrosine that help build dopamine. It’s suggested low tonic dopamine levels are a risk for addiction, so if your cheap diet results in low dopamine it could put you at risk for addiction. | This paragraph has two explanations for the change in prevalence, but it probably only needed one. Going into more detail with two explanations takes the focus a little bit from the core concept – responsibility. |
| While these are interesting fields of research, psychologists are still bound by codes of ethics to ensure their research is responsible. An important consideration is anonymity to protect participants. If a psychologist is studying opioid abuse the opioids might be legal or illegal. People who sign up for a study might be at risk if their name or other personal details are published in the study. Similarly, if people are openly revealing details about their drug use or diet they would benefit from having their name removed from the data. | Key ethical considerations are made directly relevant to the topic. |
| This raises another interesting ethical quandary – what if the researcher is asked to break the law? It’s common that psychologists develop relationships with participants they study for a long time. If the researcher is asked to do something illegal, like hide someone’s drugs, do they have a responsibility to uphold the law and report the person or an ethical responsibility to their participant? There’s no simple answer. This highlights the difficulties researchers face when trying to conduct valid yet responsible research. | An in-depth understanding of the role of responsibility in the research process is shown by the questions raised in this paragraph. |
| Psychologists have studied the rise in prevalence of substance abuse, but also compare prevalence rates across groups of people and areas. One interesting statistic is that the prevalence of opioid abuse is correlated with the number of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) someone has. This is straightforward research to conduct – measure ACEs with questionnaires and measure opioid abuse and see if the two are correlated. But an important consideration to ensure responsible research is the right to withdraw. If people start filling out questionnaires on their traumatic childhood they might get upset. Researchers have to allow participants to withdraw so as to prevent their research causing harm. | This paragraph isn’t as strong as the others, but doesn’t change the mark either way. Writing Tip: Plan your essay first and figure out your strongest points. Start with these and end with your weaker ones. |
| In conclusion, in the study of the prevalence of substance use and abuse psychologists investigate personal topics like diet, unemployment, ACEs and attachment. While these kinds of studies can help us understand the rise in prevalence of opioid addiction and substance abuse, they also have the risk of causing harm to participants. To make sure their research is responsible, psychologists must follow code of ethics and apply guidelines like informed consent, anonymity and the right to withdraw. (Approx. 800 words). | The conclusion neatly summarises the central arguments put forth in the essay and links in the core concept. |
The Triple Cheeseburger
I’ll keep tweaking the Cheeseburger recipe. I’m already second-guessing the need for “evaluation.”
In my original triple cheeseburger analogy, I proposed a good essay had three main aspects (the patties): the topic, the research and the evaluation. Let’s revisit this idea:
The Topic: The question is guaranteed to have a topic (i.e. area of study) in the question, so it’s essential students include these details. While the essay should focus on the core concept, that’s only possible when you have content knowledge. You’ll see this in the essay above – I’ve explained the topic and then linked to the concept. From a revision perspective, this gives students confidence they know exactly what to know before the exam – it can’t all be a mystery.
The Research: While not essential according to the rubric, I would encourage students to know “how we know” about each topic. As explained above, this will also make it easier to link the topic to the concept. It also prepares students for any of the six concepts.
Evaluation: This one I’m reconsidering. The example essay above, which I’d score highly, contains little to no “evaluation.” What it does instead is explain the relevance of the concept to the topic and relevant research methods. But then again, the rubric does say “Critical Analysis.” Isn’t this just another term for evaluation? I’d argue the essay above would be stronger if it went a step further and explained a limitation in following some ethical guidelines. I’ll keep writing more essay examples and I’ll tweak the cheeseburger recipe accordingly.
Note: When writing example answers I try my best to mimic a writing style and ability that’s within reach of most IB Psychology students. To test this, I posted the essay into ChatGPT and asked it to rank my essay – this is what it gave me.
Why Research?
The focus of the essay must be on the “area of study” and the “concept.” So why do we need research?It’s possible to write an essay without mentioning research (studies and/or methods), but I think this is very difficult (read more). The six concepts are far more relevant to research methods than they are the “areas of study.” Let’s look at the core concept in the essay question above – responsibility. This concept must be linked to the area of study. In this case, it’s prevalence of health problems. More specifically, students should be explaining why prevalence rates change and/or differences in prevalence rates between populations. Now, have a go at making a cogent point about “responsibility” that relates to changes or differences in prevalence. Go on. I’ll wait.
Let me try…Maybe something about societies responsibility to reduce the prevalence of health problems? Perhaps I could explain the responsibilities of government and their policy and practice? Contrast that with a question about who’s ultimately responsible for the rise in prevalence rates – the individual, the family or society? Yes, well, that would make for some interesting points. But let’s think for a moment how my teacher could have possibly prepared me to write about that. It’s more likely those ideas came from 42 years on this earth and 20 studying Psychology, not 18 and 2.
This is why I see the value in preparing to write about the underlying research methods in the context topics. There’s nothing stopping highly able students going rogue and bringing in their own ideas, but that’s a bonus, not the expectation. Similarly, the key terms the IB’s given us for each concept are highly relevant to research. The “Responsibility” terms, for instance, are exclusively about research methods.
The key terms for each of the concepts are far more relevant for research than anything else.
Study Tips
Drop a context: In Section C you’re giving two questions from two different contexts – you choose only one to answer. That means you can drop one context when revising for the essays. For example, imagine you dropped “Human development.” In the exam, you might get an essay question on this context, but the other question would come form one of the other three that you had revised, so you’re all set.
Start with the topic (area of study): Begin you revision with the topic – your essay must include content knowledge and use of specific terminology. There’s nothing stopping you from writing a 500 word practice essay on each topic. You could use the learning outcomes in the guide and just put the word “Discuss” in front of them (Lightbulb: just came up with my next blog post).
Find the overlaps: Where possible, plan to use the same content knowledge in the essays as you did in the SAQs. For example, you need to know a “biological explanation” for a mental health disorder. If you made this biological explanation a chemical messenger (e.g. serotonin and depression), you could use that same content for the SAQs.
Teaching Tips
Don’t rush into it…
In my early days of teaching IB Psychology I treated the assessments the same from Day 1 to Day 600. I took the final exam format and used that as the basis for my in-class assessments. Then I realised something – it’s unfair and unrealistic for me to begin my course with tests that students have two years to prepare for. With this in mind, I would encourage you to think carefully about when you introduce essays into your assessment programme. I would also encourage you to have a number of SAQ assessments first before you introduce essays. If students can first practice with SAQs, it makes essay writing that little bit easier.
Step-by-step
This is similar to the advice above. I like using scaffolds in my assessments to build confidence. After all, experts need critiques like novices need praise. We want our students to get heaps of things right with only a few areas to improve each time. Slowly, slowly, we remove the scaffolds. Here’s one idea: if you have an essay question as a post-unit summative assessment, choose one of the six concepts and tell students they’re guaranteed that concept will be in the question. You could do this with six different concepts over six units, or add one new concept each time.
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Travis Dixon has been teaching for over 20 years and is an experienced IB Psychology, History and English teacher, author, workshop leader and examiner