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The IA

  • The IA

What is Internal Assessment (IA)?

The IA or Internal Assessment provides both SL and HL students with an opportunity to explore any part of your history programme in more detail, or indeed to explore an area that is not covered by your programme (see question guidance).

Please note that teacher moderation is back for 2023 exams (rather than each script being marked by IB)

What are the requirements of the IA?

  • It should take up about 20 hours teaching time which includes the setting up of the assignment, time in class to work on it and also one-on-one tutorials
  • It is internally assessed according to the criteria; if two teachers are involved in the process then internal moderation must take place
  • Teachers can look at and provide feedback on one draft of the IA
  • Teachers must check for authenticity of the students work at all stages of the process
  • The final assignment must not be more than 2,200 words
  • There must be consistent referencing throughout and a bibliography

What is the structure of the IA?

The IA consists of 3 sections.

Section A requires students to state their question and to identify and evaluate two of the sources that have used. They also need to say why these sources are relevant to their investigation.

Section B is the main body of the assignment where students carry out their investigation and set out their work as they would do in a formal essay.

Section C is the reflection section where students need to reflect on what they have learnt about the methods of historians and the problems that historians face in dealing with evidence.

The criteria are dealt with in more detail here:  IA: Explaining the criteria

1. IA: Explaining the criteria

This page explains the criteria for the IA in more detail.In this section, students need to:This section builds on the skills that they will already have developed for Question 2 of Paper 1.

2. IA: Getting the question right

The starting point for students is to find a topic that they are interested in.

3. IA: Graded student examples

This section includes samples of high scoring IAs with the marks and examiner's comments.

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