This material is the for the “old syllabus.” Students in the new IB Psychology syllabus (first exams May, 2019), do not need to know about narrative interviews (but they do need to know about unstructured interviews). What is a narrative interview? A “narrative” is a spoken or written summary of connected events. So a narrative interview asks questions that require …
Lesson Idea: Analyzing Focus Group Interviews
Using real examples of qualitative studies is an effective way of teaching qualitative research methods and concepts. It also helps with developing students’ ability to apply their knowledge to stimulus material (i.e. they learn how to use details from the text to support their answers). Note: this task has been developed for the “old” syllabus, but could be adapted for …
IA: Final Submission Guidelines
This post is designed to help you make sure that you’re following the basic IA requirements before submitting your final draft. The following guidelines come from the e-coursework handbook from the IB. This information is relevant as of March, 2018. Please always refer to official IB documentation and ask your DP Co-ordinator for the latest updates. Formatting Guidance The following …
Lesson Idea: Generalizability (External Validity)
The Task Read the following fictional summaries of how people have applied results from psychological studies. Identify one or more reasons why the application is misguided and might not work. #1 Social Media and Anxiety: One study in the USA showed a correlation between social media and anxiety so a school in Japan has banned the use of social media. #2 Music Class …
Lesson Idea: Understanding Sampling Methods
Task: Read the following summaries of studies and how they got their samples. Identify the type of sampling method used. Was it: (a) Random (b) Self-selected/volunteer (c) Opportunity Mental Health and War: A psychologist studying the effects of war on mental health got a list of all enlisted soldiers in the countries army using public census records. They assigned a number to …
Lesson Idea: Understanding Self-selected Sampling
This activity and lots of others are included in the student workbook in the Teacher Support Pack for Chapter 6: Quantitative Methods. Read the aims of the following proposed experiments. Some researchers want to carry out these studies but their problem is they don’t have any participants yet. Working with a partner, come up with some ideas on how they …
Lesson Idea: Understanding correlational studies
The purpose of this activity is to help you learn about correlational studies and correlation coefficients. Key Questions: What are three characteristics of a correlational study? How do correlational studies differ from experiments? How and why are correlational studies used in one or more approaches to understanding behaviour? Resources Textbook 6.1f, pg 320-321 (IB Psychology: A Student’s Guide) (Link) Correlation …
Lesson Idea: Experimental Designs
The purpose of this activity is to help you learn about design choices experimenters have and to think about the benefits and limitations of using each design. You will also learn about terminology for extraneous variables and other controls. It is designed to be studied during the Quantitative Methods unit (Chapter 6, 6.1b). It should take about 15-20 minutes. Key …
What is an “emic concept?”
This post is for the “old” syllabus (May and Nov 2018 exams) and is not needed for the new one. The LO for the old syllabus is: “Using one or more examples, explain “emic” and “etic” concepts.” An emic concept refers to an approach to research that involves studying behaviour in a single culture. This is different to an etic …
Tips for writing “Discuss research related to…” essays
In the new IB Psychology syllabus it’s fair to anticipate numerous questions that will require students to discuss research related to particular topics. This will be especially true in the options. Here are some possible questions: Discuss research related to neuroplasticity. Discuss research related to attachment. Discuss research related to bystanderism. You can find an example essay here: Sample Essay from …
Stereotype Threat
One way that stereotypes can have an effect on behaviour is by something called “stereotype threat.” This is defined as “being at risk of confirming, as a self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one’s social group” (Steele & Aronson, 1995). In other words, you feel that you might behave in a way that confirms a stereotype about a group that you …
Teaching Tip: How to access the IB Psychology discussion forum
Now that the OCC forum has closed down, the discussion forum moderated by Peter Giddens and read by the IB Psychology curriculum people has been moved to a new location. This post will help you find it. Step 1: Login Go to the login page for MyIB here. You will get to a page that looks like this one below. …
Qualitative Study Examples
There are plenty of freely available qualitative studies on google scholar. One way to find studies is to ask your students to think of a topical subject in the media that has caught their attention lately. Google search “qualitative psychology (your topic)” and see what you can find. Another approach is to find studies that could help them understand other …
Lesson Ideas: Qualitative Methods
Full credit for the ideas in this post go to Alan Law who shared these with me recently. Problem-based Approach Find and source a real example of a qualitative study and provide students with a very brief summary of the central research question of the study. Then ask students in small groups to decide what method they would use to …
Schema Theory Teaching Resources
The first topic in Social Influence Part II (support pack coming soon) is Schema Theory. This topic comes after learning about SIT and the out-group homogeneity effect as the latter is closely related to schema theory, an both topics deal with stereotypes. Here’s the first pages of the student workbook for the Schema Theory Topic (Download). Here’s the Powerpoint file that has …
How to explain the use of a research method
In both the “old” and “new” IB Psychology syllabi, students have to be able to discuss the use of research methods (and brain imaging techniques). Before we see how to do this, it’s important to make one clarification first: the IB considers the following to be research methods: Experiments (including true, natural, quasi and field experiments) Case studies Correlational studies Interviews …
Lesson Ideas: Schema Theory
The first step in teaching schema theory is getting students to comprehend the abstract concept of “schemas” in the first place. In my experience, takes a couple of lessons at least. In our ThemEd Facebook group for IB Psychology Teachers (Join Here) I recently asked our members for some help in coming up with ideas. There were so many great …
Teaching Tip: 3 ways to save hours of teaching time
As we’re all figuring out the new course, including course plans, this first year or two you might be feeling like you’re behind and you’re worried about getting everything covered in time for the exams. This post will explain how you can cut masses of content from your course, while still being assured your kids will be fine for the …
Schema Theory and Stereotypes
One way to explain how stereotypes are formed is to use the claims of schema theory. To recap, schema theory argues that we organize information in our mind by unconsciously creating categories (these categories are the schemas). We do this because we encounter millions of units of information on a daily basis and if we didn’t simplify this information into …
Key Study: Stereotypes, Social Identity Theory and the Out-group Homogeneity Effect (Park and Rothbart, 1982)
Background Information This study can be used to support the out-group homogeneity effect’s explanation of stereotype formation. The out-group homogeneity effect is a hypothesis that claims members of in-groups will perceive members of their own group as being more diverse than an out-group and they will perceive out-group members as being more similar to one another. If things are homogeneous …
Lesson Idea: Origins of Conflict
Your Task There are five resources below that you will need to complete this task. Working with your group, it’s a race to see who can answer this question first: All of these conflicts started for the same reason. What is that reason? Source 1: The “Beaver Wars” (Warpaths2peacepipes) This article summarizes a conflict in North America in the late …
Schema Theory: A Summary
Updated, July 2020 Schema theory is perhaps the most difficult theory in psychology to comprehend. But once you understand it, you’ll see the effects of schema everywhere. In this post, we’ll break down the theory step-by-step. What is schema theory? Schema theory’s central claim is that our knowledge of the world is organized and categorized, which can influence our cognition …
Lesson Idea: Acculturation Strategies
This activity is designed to help students understant Berry’s four different acculturation strategies. Read the summaries below of how these immigrants have adjusted to life in their new culture. What strategy have they used? Assimilation, integration, separation or marginalization? Read about the four different strategies in this post. Monica – Is a 16 year old Egyptian girl who moved to …
What is “acculturation?”
Acculturation is the process of interacting with a new culture and adjust to life in that new culture. How we acculturate can affect our behaviour, including our mental health. In IB Psychology, we’re required to study how this process of interacting with new culture can affect our behaviour. For this reason, when you see the term “acculturation” it might be …
Lesson/Revision Idea: The Two Minute Drill
How it works… Put two minutes on a timer (I use a trusty kitchen timer) Project a possible exam question, maybe one for a topic that you’ve been working on or revising Students have two minutes to outline a plan of how they’d answer that question A4 pieces of paper cut in half are good to use Collect all answers …