{"id":16083,"date":"2026-04-30T11:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T02:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themantic-education.com\/ibpsych\/?p=16083"},"modified":"2026-04-30T11:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T02:15:08","slug":"the-ias-population-pitfall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themantic-education.com\/ibpsych\/2026\/04\/30\/the-ias-population-pitfall\/","title":{"rendered":"The IA’s Population Pitfall<\/br>And how to avoid it....<\/font>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inconsistencies in resources and exemplars raise questions about how specific the \u201cpopulation of interest\u201d needs to be and what does the term even mean? In this post, I\u2019ll outline the resources that have me confused and I\u2019ll finish with my advice.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Problem<\/strong><\/h2>\n

How specific does the “population of interest” have to be? One would assume \u201cpopulation of interest\u201d means \u201ctarget population.\u201d The definition in the TSM confirms that: \u201cconsisting of all the people in a population you as the researcher want to draw conclusions about and generalize.\u201d I\u2019m assuming target population isn\u2019t used for this IA because it\u2019s generally only used for quantitative research.<\/p>\n

However, Example A (MyIB Assessed Work) was marked mid-band (3-4) for the criterion: \u201cThe real-life problem is described and the impact on the population of interest is explained<\/em>.\u201d This example scored 3-4 because \u201cThe population of interest is defined as ‘IBDP students,’ which is very broad.\u201d The method is an experiment, so generalizing to IBDP student seems a suitable target audience. I do not know why this is \u201ctoo broad\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

The only explanation I see is that in Examples B and C they stated more specific groups in their aim: \u201chigh school students (ages 15 \u2013 18) in an international school\u201d and \u201cfood delivery riders in Mumbai.\u201d (B and C respectively). But the impact of the problems (obesity and safety) weren\u2019t explained in relation to these specific populations, they were explained in terms of the impact on the broader populations of \u201cobese teens” and \u201conline gig workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seems the term \u201cpopulation of interest\u201d 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?<\/p>\n

The Solution<\/strong><\/h2>\n

For now, encouraging students to have broad populations is a good approach. It ensures there\u2019ll 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 \u201cobese teens\u201d and \u201cgig workers\u201d as guidance that we can explain problems in relation to these broader populations.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cfood delivery riders in Mumbai.\u201d Therefore, to make sure the population of interest is specific the aim and\/or RQ should state a \u201c\u2026school community, a local community or a national community.\u201d<\/p>\n

So here are some example populations of interest narrowed in a potential aim:<\/p>\n