Your Guide to Writing the IA in Psychology

The following paragraphs indicate the information that candidates should include under each heading of the report. See below for ideas on topics for the IA. You may want to download these checklists to help you: SL or HL. Words in gold print are downloadable files to help you with more advice on writing that section.

Title Page

The title page should give clear indication of the experimental method and the specific topic of study. The hypothesis should determine how the title is constructed. The student's candidate number, the date, the instructor's name, the level of the course (HL or SL) and the final word count should all be clearly indicated on the title page.

Table of Contents

A table of contents must be included. All pages of the study should be numbered, including the appendices.

Abstract

The abstract contains a summary of important information about the study. It should summarize the aims, methods, and results of the study. It should also clearly state the conclusion drawn. It must not exceed 200 words.

Introduction

The introduction provides the background and justification for the research study. At SL, this sections includes the study that is being replicated and the aim of the study at hand. At HL, the introduction is longer and includes a more thorough review of literature related to the study. Candidates should use this section to justify the prediction that they are making in their research hypothesis. This section should move from broad concepts to more specific studies that are directly related to the current study. Be sure to define all important terminology in this section as relevant to your study.

This section should end in a clearly defined research question/aim (SL) or operationalized research and null hypothesis (HL).

The introduction should follow the order below:

• A general introduction to the psychological subject area under investigation. Include an indication of the perspective that is being discussed.
• A summary of the key theories and research studies. This must include proper reference, for example, Zajonc (1965). Candidates at SL must cite one reference, and at least three are recommended for HL. SL, you are simply to summarize the aim, procedure, and findings of the study that you are replicating.
• A rationale and justification for the study.
• The aim (HL and SL) and hypotheses (HL only).

Aim (HL and SL)

The aim of the study is a statement about what is being investigated and what is expected. It is less precise than an operationalized research hypothesis, for example: The aim of this study is to investigate how the use of category headings affects the number of words that binlingual students at the International School in Prague can recall.

Hypotheses (HL only)

Research Hypothesis: The research hypothesis must be a clear, concise prediction of what is expected to be demonstrated in the experiment. This must be operationalized: that is, it must be evident how the variables will be quantified, and may be either one- or two-tailed.

Null Hypothesis: The null hypothesis states that no significant difference is expected to be found between the groups on the measure of the dependent variable, and that any difference found is due to random variables. Candidates should make it clear that they understand that it is not the opposite of the research hypothesis.

Method

This section must be subdivided into four parts: design, participants, materials, procedures.

Design

Candidates must state the experimental method used, give details of the type of design (for example, independent samples, repeated measures), and explain and justify why this method and design were chosen. They must identify and explain any controls that were used, and address ethical considerations. Independent and dependent variables must be clearly identified.

Participants

A sample of 15 - 20 participants is recommended. The characteristics of the general population being sampled should be identified, in terms of, for example, the number of participants, age, gender distribution, even if some variables are not under investigation. Selection and allocation procedures must be identified and justified. If sampling is not done randomly, this must be clearly justified.

Materials

This section may be a list of materials developed for use in the experiment. Basic materials such as paper, pencils, chairs, tables - need not be listed. Any materials that were specifically developed for the experiment should be listed and referenced to a sample copy included in the appendices. The full text of, for example, standardized instructions, informed consent, and debriefing notes should be included in the appendices.

Procedures

Candidates must carefully and accurately describe how they carried out the experiment. This should be done in chronological order beginning with how materials were developed. Enough detail should be provided so that another researcher could replicate the experiment. It must include consent forms and debriefing. The sampling technique does not need to be re-described.

Results

This section includes numerical and graphical reporting of the data collected by the candidate. The results must be stated in narrative form and in graphical form. The data should be reported in a away that reflects the claims made in the aims and hypothesis.

The use of descriptive statistics is required at both levels. Candidates should use the descriptive statistics that best suit their study. Ideally, candidates will measure both the central tendency and dispersion as appropriate. Raw data should not be included here, but allocated to an appendix.

Graphs and tables may be drawn on the computer. One graph is usually sufficient. Computers can create many different graphs, but candidates should be advised against producing irrelevant graphs. Candidates must not include graphs that show each individual participant's score.

At higher level, inferential statistical analysis of the results is included in this section. Candidates must justify the use of the inferential statistical test chosen. Any calculations should be allocated to an appendix.

Discussion

The purpose of this section is to discuss the following:

• the results of the current study and its relation to the studies cited in the introduction.
• the strengths and limitations of the methodology used.
• any relevant modifications and areas of further investigation.
• an informed conclusion.

This section allows candidates to interpret their own results in the lights of previous research. They must relate their findings to theories or studies referred to in the introduction. No new studies or citations should be introduced.

Candidates should analyze and evaluate their own methodology. They should discuss any flaws or limitations that may have affected the outcome of the experiment. The strongest reports will identify possible confounding variables that may have influenced the study and not rely on a simplistic evaluation such as "the experimental study should have used a larger sample." Modifications that would remedy any limitations should also be included.

During the course of the experiment, candidates may come across unusual results or related topics that may be interesting to investigate experimentally. Candidates should make special note of any such thoughts that arose during the study.

Finally, a brief conclusion should be presented which summarizes the results of the experiment.

References

In this section, candidates must include a complete set of references to the works cited in the study. An approved reference format must be used. Remember not to number your sources and be sure to alphabetize them.

Appendices

In this section, candidates must include blank copies of any supplementary information. This section provides all the materials necessary to allow the experiment to be replicated. Tables of raw data must be included. Do not include all the participants' filled in materials - one blank copy is sufficient. Lastly, be sure to label each appendix appropriately.

Ideas for Internal Assessment

with thanks to Ian Campbell

Important Ethical Issues:

• You may not do any conformity studies
• All animal experiments are forbidden.
• No stereotyping practical to do with race, religion, gender or social class is allowed.
• Quasi experiments are out - e.g. where the IV is age/race/gender/class/ability
• Informed consent must always be obtained, and debriefing must be carried out.

SL candidates, please note that your study is supposed to be based on a previous experiment carried out by psychologists (i.e. a replication). HL candidates may design an experiment bu you may also simply replicate one. All plans for experiments should be approved by the teacher.

Here is a list of sample IA topics.

A. Memory

1. Memory and acoustic learning: There is a theory that when we have to learn something like a telephone number that we store the number in the form of the mental sound that it makes i.e. acoustically. Participants have to learn lists of letters and then write them down after a delay. According to the acoustic coding theory participants will have more difficulty recalling letters which sound similarcompared to a list of words which sound quite different.
2. Improving memory: Imagery vs rehearsal: participants recall more words from a (20) word list when they use an imagery method (forming a vivid mental image and linking each item to the last in a dynamic fashion) than if they use either rehearsal (repeat each item until you hear the next) or no particular method (no prior instruction). Bower (1967); Paivio (1971).
3. The Role of Ambiguity: Give participants an ambiguous passage (which could mean anything) which they later have to recall. Some participants are given a title to the passage which makes it sensible while other participants are not. Those with the title should process the passage more meaningfully and therefore recall the passage more successfully.
4. Memory and levels of processing: Craik and Lockhart hypothesise that the deeper and more meaningfully we process information the better subsequent recall will be. Participants are asked to process words either at a basic structural level like 'is the word in capitals?' or at a level requiring the comprehension of meaning e.g. 'is it something you can eat'? Participants would be expected to recall those words processed more deeply more successfully. Craik and Tulving (1975).
5. Memory interference: This could be nicely applied to school revision. Participants have to learn for example a list of words and then recall them. Memory is interfered with by learning another list of words; some participants learn this interfering list before the main list and some learn it after the main list to see which has the greater effect.
6. Eye-witness reports: Loftus and Palmer (1974); Loftus and Zanni (1975). Participants asked how fast cars were going when they ‘smashed’ into each other, after viewing a car accident, report greater speeds than do participants asked the speed when they ‘hit’ each other. The former group are more likely to report seeing broken glass (when none is there) a week later.
7. Does background noise impair memory? This is good for those who argue that they can listen to their iPods and still study for their IB exams...

B. Perception, Thinking and Performance

1. Perceptual Sets: (a) This is based on the hypothesis that peoples' perception of colour depends on what they associate that colour with. For example, people associate tomatoes with being red so might perceive a stronger red colour than say a red hat which doesn't have the same associations. This practical involves showing participants pictures of fruit but with some of the colours mixed up. For example, participants are shown a picture of a red tomato and then a red banana and later have to judge the colours of each on a colour chart. b. Solving lists of anagrams is easier if all the words belong to a category (e.g. animals) than if they are random words. c. The participant is presented briefly with a list of words about a topic e.g. letter, post, stamp etc. which they have to write down - and then one of them is misspelled e.g. mael, and the hypothesis is that because a strong mental concept of the topic has been set up that they will write down the word as 'mail'.
2. Stroop effect: Participants take a lot longer to name the colour of ink that words are written in when the words themselves are contradictory colour words e.g. ‘red’ written in yellow ink – Dyer (1973).
3. Word and letter recognition: Visual search: Time taken to find X’s hidden in a four column list of similar shaped letters (Y, Z etc.) is longer than for lists with letters such as S, R, P etc. – Neisser’s (1964) feature analysis model of pattern recognition. Alternatively: Participants will take longer to find 0 among letters if it is called tzero’ than when it is called letter ‘oh’ and vice versa – Jonides & Gleitman (1972).
4. Heuristics: Tversky and Kahneman’s (1973) ‘availability’ hypothesis. If people recall more items from one set than from another they assume (heuristically) that there actually were more in the former set. Demonstrate this by giving participants a set of names to remember containing 19 very famous males and 20 not so famous females. Since participants tend to recall more male names they tend to judge that more males were in the list.
5. Anchoring Bias - Tversky and Kahneman. Someone's estimates of something will be greatly influenced by the way the question is structured. For example, people asked to estimate 1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8x9 give lower estimates than those estimating 9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1 because the earliest numbers affect perception of the answer. Similarly, if subjects are asked to guess the length of the river Vltava, their estimates will be influenced by a preceding question "is 2000 km (or 20,000km in the other condition) an over or underestimate of the length of the river Vltava". (Kahnemann and Tversky (1973) and Northcraft and Neale (1987)

C. Social Psychology

1. Person perception: Versions of Asch’s (1946) ‘warm’, ‘cold’ central traits paradigm can be implemented in many topical ways. Candidates give one description of a person to one group of participants and an identical version to another group varying only one characteristic, for instance ‘agrees with nuclear testing’ for one group and ‘disagrees....’ for the other. They then ask participants to assess the fictitious person on, say, liking or trustworthiness on a 10 point scale and look for differences between groups. Asch’s ‘primacy’ effect can also be tested using a list of descriptors – e.g. ‘orderly entertaining humble cool calculating moody’ in that order for one group and in the opposite order for another. Those hearing the positive traits first might rate the person more favourably on a ten point scale – Anderson and Barrios (1961). Luria and Rubin (1974) – participants given the same picture of a baby but one group told it is male the other female. Record differences in descriptions. It is best to give a checklist to participants containing ‘typical’ masculine and feminine traits – fine featured, strong, robust, sensitive, cute, and delicate.
2. Social facilitation: The idea is that people tend to perform better when in groups than when on their own. Subjects can be given tasks (e.g. word searches) either in groups or on their own to test this theory.
3. The halo effect: The effects of physical attractiveness: The halo effect states that attractive people are perceived as having more positive attributes.
4. Social inference : Do people over-estimate the number of beads in a jar if they see a list of other peoples "over-estimates?" i.e. do they base their estimates on other peoples' views?
5. Defensive attribution: The more serious an accident appears, the more people wish to assign responsibility to the driver.
6. Incentives and performance: It would seem logical that incentives should improve our performance. This could be tested by asking subjects to perform simple tasks like anagrams and measuring their speed of performance under different conditions. e.g. with or without an incentive like a Mars bar or alternatively by creating a fear of failing - to see whether positive or negative incentives are the most effective (e.g. telling the subjects that the results  will be put on display and that the average number of completed anagrams in 5 minutes by 8 year olds is 15!) This could be developed to find whether the fear of failure impedes performance most on more complex cognitive tasks like anagrams rather than simple memory recall type tasks. Alternatively you could test the hypothesis that a group of subjects will perform better on a task if they have previously (based on an earlier test) been told they have scored highly, than a group who have been told (falsely) they have performed badly.