Inconsistencies in resources and exemplars raise questions about how specific the “population of interest” needs to be and what does the term even mean? In this post, I’ll outline the resources that have me confused and I’ll finish with my advice.
The Problem
How specific does the “population of interest” have to be? One would assume “population of interest” means “target population.” The definition in the TSM confirms that: “consisting of all the people in a population you as the researcher want to draw conclusions about and generalize.” I’m assuming target population isn’t used for this IA because it’s generally only used for quantitative research.
However, Example A (MyIB Assessed Work) was marked mid-band (3-4) for the criterion: “The real-life problem is described and the impact on the population of interest is explained.” This example scored 3-4 because “The population of interest is defined as ‘IBDP students,’ which is very broad.” The method is an experiment, so generalizing to IBDP student seems a suitable target audience. I do not know why this is “too broad” for a target population. The other two examples (B and C) scored top marks for even broader populations – obese teens and gig workers. This confuses me.
The only explanation I see is that in Examples B and C they stated more specific groups in their aim: “high school students (ages 15 – 18) in an international school” and “food delivery riders in Mumbai.” (B and C respectively). But the impact of the problems (obesity and safety) weren’t explained in relation to these specific populations, they were explained in terms of the impact on the broader populations of “obese teens” and “online gig workers.”
It seems the term “population of interest” hasn’t yet been consistently defined, nor that application applied in the assessment. I’m sure this will be clarified after the first round of assessments, but until then what can we do?
The Solution
For now, encouraging students to have broad populations is a good approach. It ensures there’ll be background studies and the impact of the problem can be explained. For example, teenagers (or any age group), people with (insert disorder), IB students, etc. We can (hopefully) rely on the top-scoring exemplars that used “obese teens” and “gig workers” as guidance that we can explain problems in relation to these broader populations.
However, the aim and/or research question should state a more specific group of people. That group of people should be from whom the sample is taken.* For instance, Exemplar B studied obesity in the students aged 15-18 from their specific high school and Exemplar A studied safety in “food delivery riders in Mumbai.” Therefore, to make sure the population of interest is specific the aim and/or RQ should state a “…school community, a local community or a national community.”
So here are some example populations of interest narrowed in a potential aim:
- Boys raised in fatherless homes – Boys aged 16-18 from (insert town/city) raised in fatherless homes
- IB students – IBDP students from schools in (insert town/city)
- Teenaged girls with depression – Teenaged girls aged 16-18 from (insert town/city) who have depression
Therefore, to make the aim and target population specific simply add a specific location and if relevant, an age. This will help keep both the aim focused and the population of interest specific enough. It may also help later for implications of the findings.
Hope this helps.
Travis Dixon has been teaching for over 20 years and is an experienced IB Psychology, History and English teacher, author, workshop leader and examiner