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Simplifying the IA

Travis Dixon

Take the stress out of the IA by following these simple steps.

How can psychological research help people? That’s the IA’s key question. So why not make it simple – how about designing an experiment to help improve teenagers’ lives?

The biggest challenge is getting started. With an endless possibility of problems, populations and procedures, it’s easy to get stuck at the IA start line. This post is designed to narrow your focus and help you pick a topic that is relevant, interesting and suitable for top marks. You’ll be guided through six simple steps.

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Step 1: Pick Your Population 

Why not study the people you know – your peers at school. For reasons that will soon become clear, they make an excellent population of interest for the IA.

Step 2: Pick Your Problem 

The problem is technology – smartphones, social media, apps, AI, video games, internet, streaming sites. Problematic use of these technologies can cause numerous cognitive, physical, behavioural and psychological problems for teenagers. These effects may also be more dramatic because of the developmental changes happening during adolescence.

Here are 15 common problems linked to technology. Read these and consider which ones are most relevant and/or interesting for you. There’s a full glossary at the end of this post.

  1. Nomophobia
  2. Fear of missing out (FOMO)
  3. Poor sleep quality 
  4. Obesity 
  5. Social media addiction
  6. Internet addiction 
  7. Online gaming addiction 
  8. Body dissatisfaction 
  9. Anxiety
  10. Depression
  11. Low self-esteem (social comparison)
  12. Reduced working memory capacity
  13. Attention problems 
  14. Loneliness 
  15. Stress 

All of the above problems can be quantitatively measured in experimental studies.

Step 3: Pick your research method

Why not design a true experiment? True experiments are simple in their aim – to see what causes a change in behaviour. Therefore, a simple true experiment can test an intervention to see if it causes a positive change. A true experiment has three core characteristics:

One of the most important types of true experiment is the randomised controlled trial (RCT), which is designed to test the effectiveness of an intervention. An RCT can be a true experiment even when it takes place over several weeks or months, or outside a laboratory.

Here are some simple interventions that could be tested experimentally.

Tip: You’ll need to “explain the impact of the problem on your population.” All of the above technology-related problems have negative impacts on teenagers. Part of your research will be finding information to explain how and why the technology may be causing the problem.

Step 4: Choose Your IV – The Intervention 

An intervention is any strategy designed to change behaviour. Choosing an intervention makes it easier to design your experiment – you’re going to see if the intervention can reduce the problem. This also makes it your IV – one group gets the intervention while the other group doesn’t.

What intervention could reduce the problems caused by technology? One idea is cold turkey – simply going without the problematic technology for 30 days. For most of the above problems this is feasible, logical and in fact an already well-researched intervention.

If cold turkey doesn’t work for your problem you can design one yourself or find what already exists. Remember the hypothesised outcome is a positive change in behaviour. It’s advisable to link your intervention to the technology as well.

Tip: Designing a true experiment with a hypothesized positive change in behaviour will make it easier to explain the implications for your research on policy and practice.

Step 5: Choose Your DV – The Measurement

How will you know the intervention worked? You’ll need to measure the problem before and after. That’s your dependent variable. While all of the above problems have existing questionnaires and measurement tools used to measure them in studies, for the IA you need to develop your own “data collection tool.”

Here’s what the IB’s FAQs say about adapting already existing materials (on MyIB PRC).

The Psychology guide states that the student should create the data collection tool for the internal assessment. How much originality are we expecting? Can students base their tool on an existing tool?

The expectations for students completing their internal assessment are in line with what is authentic practice, which sometimes involves the reuse of questions or sourcing them from previous published studies. Reusing some questions is allowed, as long as the student creates most of the data tool and clearly references the reused items in line with the IB academic integrity policy. It shows the ability of a student to select, repurpose and adapt materials critically for the purpose of their work.

This means you can’t use a full existing questionnaire. For example, you can’t just say you’ll use the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) to measure stress. But you can adapt it. Here are some things to consider when adapting an existing tool for your IA:

You’re now ready to start writing your aim and research question. This blog post might help.

Glossary of Problems 

Nomophobia

Nomophobia is the anxiety caused by being separated from your mobile phone (No-Mobile-Phone-Phobia). It can be measured using the Nomophobia Questionnaire (NMP-Q). While some experiments remove people from their phones to try to cause nomophobia, I’d advise against this for your IA since you are not allowed to conduct a study that might “create anxiety, stress, pain or discomfort.” Instead, could reducing time spent with a phone reduce nomophobia over time? Interestingly, attachment theory is one theory proposed to explain nomophobia.

 

Fear of missing out (FOMO)

Ever been sent a snapchat of your friends somewhere fun while you’re at home? You might have felt FOMO – the fear of missing out. It’s the concern that other people are having rewarding experiences without you. Social media can intensify FOMO by constantly showing us what other people are doing, potentially distracting us from our own activities. But if a post happens and we don’t see it, does it cause FOMO?

Poor sleep quality 

Ever stayed up all night on your phone, or watching Netflix? There are multiple ways technology can reduce sleep quality. Sleep quality itself can be measured using technology (like wearing a whoop strap) or through simple questionnaires. Good sleep hygiene rules always state having screens and phones out of the bedroom.

Obesity 

In developing countries the rates of obesity are on the rise alongside the use of technology. Causation or correlation? One possible explanation is that people are sitting (or lying down) longer when using technology, instead of doing more active activities. BMI and body fat % are the common ways of measuring obesity. Perhaps more technology could be used to tackle obesity – following fitness influencers, wearing a step counter or using fitness apps, for example.

Social media, internet or video game addiction

Addiction to technology has the same features as drug addiction:

All three can be measured using scales, such as the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale or the Internet Addiction Test. Video game addiction is also called internet gaming disorder and is a recognised disorder. Like drug addiction, cold turkey is often prescribed as a treatment.

Body dissatisfaction 

Body dissatisfaction is when you’re unhappy about your body. Decades of research on the topic suggests that exposure to the “thin ideal” in media can influence body dissatisfaction, especially in young women. With the internet in our pockets the exposure to the thin ideal is more dangerous than ever – could removing this help improve body image?

Anxiety and Depression

Is it just a coincidence that rates of teenage anxiety and depression started to dramatically rise around 2012, the same time smartphones were becoming ubiquitous? It seems the evidence is clear – excessive social media use can influence rates of anxiety and depression. But would reducing technology really make a difference?

 

Low self-esteem (social comparison)

Our self-esteem is how we feel about ourselves. More specifically, it’s the extent to which we have a positive view of ourselves. Social media has been blamed for reducing self-esteem. Studies have tested whether breaks from social media can improve self-esteem.

Reduced working memory capacity

Working memory capacity is the amount of information you can hold in your mind at any one time. It’s linked with IQ, academic achievement and reading comprehension. Tonnes of research has been done correlating screen time with working memory. Can the effect be reversed? That’s the million dollar question you could design a study to test.

Attention problems 

As with working memory, the effects of various technologies on attention spans has also been well-studied. When we talk about attention it’s often broken into different types:

Sustained attention is arguably the easiest to quantify for an experiment.

Loneliness 

It’s a strange paradox that social media has made us more disconnected. Research suggests that loneliness is associated with a 26% increased likelihood of premature death. Some researchers have even compared the mortality risks associated with lacking social connections to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.

Stress 

Stress is when our demands exceed our resources. This causes a physiological response called the stress response. While technology makes some aspects of life easier, it adds a lot of demands on others. For example, email arguably makes more work than it saves. The ability for ordinary blokes like me to write Psychology resources means you’re now reading this instead of doing something more enjoyable. So would stress decrease if we reduced technology? It’s an interesting question.

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