{"id":13767,"date":"2021-01-27T15:03:55","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T06:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themantic-education.com\/ibpsych\/?p=13767"},"modified":"2021-01-27T16:33:14","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T07:33:14","slug":"ia-procedures-are-they-necessary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themantic-education.com\/ibpsych\/2021\/01\/27\/ia-procedures-are-they-necessary\/","title":{"rendered":"IA Procedures – Are they necessary?<\/br>1 in favour, 4 opposed<\/font>"},"content":{"rendered":"

In previous posts and videos I’ve advised to move your procedures to the appendices<\/a> if word count is an issue in the IA. Is this really\u00a0<\/em>an acceptable approach? Here are 4 reasons why you don’t<\/em> need a procedures section and one reason why you should<\/em> have it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some examiners think you’re not allowed to put the procedures in the appendices. As an IA examiner myself, I think you can. Here’s the rationale behind my approach, including four reasons why I think the procedures aren’t needed. You may disagree, and that’s fine. I’ll keep giving my students this advice until the IB changes or clarifies the current assessment practices.<\/p>\n

Important Note:\u00a0<\/strong>I advise students to include a procedures in their report. The Exploration is tough to write without doing this. When all avenues to get under the word count have been explored, that’s when I advise moving procedures to the appendices.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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The IA made easy.<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Reason 1: It’s not in the rubric<\/strong><\/h3>\n

As an IA examiner I know how closely we must adhere to the rubric. It’s gospel and there’s no wiggle room. Since there’s nothing in the rubric about procedures, this means it’s not assessed. This is just like word counts or references. There are no points deducted for being over the word limit or having improper referencing (if you are over the word limit we won’t read past 2200 words, though).<\/p>\n

Reason 2: It’s not in the guide<\/strong><\/h3>\n

If the rubric isn’t gospel, the IB Psychology guide surely is. If the IB were requiring students to have a procedures section in the body of the report they would have made this clear in the guide. There’s no mention of it anywhere.<\/p>\n

Reason 3: It’s not needed<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The examining advice stated that while the procedures are not directly assessed, students must have enough description of procedures so the evaluation makes sense. The subject report also said “it would be helpful” if students had a summary of procedures. Notice how it doesn’t say\u00a0necessary! <\/em>This seems reasonable since the evaluation must include strengths and limitations of\u00a0procedures.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Remember, however, that “procedures” includes your materials, your controlled variables and how you manipulated and measured your IV and DV (your operational definitions). If you’re evaluating your materials (which is an excellent aspect of procedures to evaluate) a summary of procedures is not needed. Similarly, if you’re evaluating your controlled variables including strengths or how they could be improved the procedures don’t add any context.<\/p>\n

What if you identify a confounding variable you\u00a0didn’t control for<\/em> and explain that in the evaluation? That’s also a fantastic point to evaluate. But if you didn’t control for it, you wouldn’t have written about it in your procedures so the whole thing becomes a moot point.<\/p>\n

Once you think through the practicalities of the assignment you realize that a summary of procedures adds very little to the report, provided the other required aspects are done properly. I don’t want to risk my student cutting out something essential and losing marks, in favour of the simple solution of moving procedures to the appendices. But hey, maybe that’s just me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reason 4: The IB exemplar<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The IB has a sample 22\/22 IA on their website. Now we can debate whether this is an actual 22\/22 (I don’t think it’s a good exemplar at all), but that’s a different issue. Let’s look at the procedures section. Notice how the examiner hasn’t mentioned anything about procedures and nor do they in the rubric comments.<\/p>\n

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(From MyIB Programme Resource Centre).<\/p><\/div>\n

Every one of these sentences is related to either controls, materials or operational definitions. The procedures adds no new context that would help the evaluation make sense.<\/p>\n