IB Psychology 12
INTERNAL ASSESSMENT (IA) LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Experimental Design
Define the aim of a study
State a research and null hypothesis of a study
State the independent and dependent variables in an experiment
State operational definitions of variables
Describe potential confounding variables
Explain the controls needed for an experiment (for example, maturation,
contamination, placebo effect)
Explain effects of participant and researcher expectations and bias
(including demand characteristics, expectancy effect, observer bias)
Explain the use of single and double-blind techniques
Discuss the strengths and limitations of experimental designs (for
example, independent samples, repeated measures, matched pairs,
single participant)
Sampling Procedures
Discuss sampling techniques appropriate to quantitative research (for
example, random opportunity, systematic, stratified)
Discuss how participants are allocated to experimental and control
groups (for example, matched pairs, random allocation)
Explain the concept of representative sampling
Evaluation of Research
Discuss the concepts of internal and external validity
Discuss conditions that increase a study’s reliability
Apply descriptive statistics to analyze data (for example, mean, median,
mode, range, standard deviation)
Distinguish between levels of measurement (including nominal, ordinal,
interval, ratio)
Apply appropriate graphing techniques to represent data (for example,
bar chart, histogram, line graph)
Apply an appropriately chosen statistical test (for example, Wicoxon
matched-pairs signed-ranks test, Mann-Whitney U test, sign test, chisquared test) in order to determine the level of significance of data