Home of real teaching & learning
  • Full support for teachers
  • Focus on critical thinking
  • Engaging classroom activities
  • Integrated student eBook
  • Assessed tasks / qBank
  • Practice exam questions
Find out more Download brochure

The InThinking Guarantee: Our sites are written by expert practitioners and not by AI

See our AI policy

Disclaimer: InThinking subject sites are neither endorsed by nor connected with the International Baccalaureate Organisation.

Don't miss out, find out!

Scientific investigation

The internally-assessed coursework in physics takes the form of a scientific investigation. 

Teachers of the previous Guide may notice that it is no longer an "individual" investigation, which reflects the possibility for teamwork during the data collection phase.

Basics

Logistics

  • One 10-hour investigation
  • Presented as a scientific report
  • 3000-word maximum
  • Marked by teachers with school-wide internal moderation
  • Sample checked by an IB examiner for worldwide moderation

Success criteria

  • 6 marks for Research Design (question, methodology, reproducibility)
  • 6 marks for Data Analysis (recording and processing, uncertainties, appropriateness and accuracy)
  • 6 marks for Conclusion (justified, relevant and consistent, scientific context)
  • 6 marks for Evaluation (methodological weaknesses and limitations, and linked improvements)

This Internal Assessment represents 20% of the final grade at both Standard and Higher Level.

The IB provides four assessment objectives in physics:

  1. Demonstrate knowledge
  2. Understand and apply knowledge
  3. Analyse evaluate and synthesize
  4. Demonstrate the application of skills necessary to carry out insightful and ethical investigations

Unlike external assessments (examinations) that assess only Objectives 1, 2 and 3, the internal assessment requires students to work towards all four objectives.

Before getting started...

It is essential that teachers and students familiarise themselves with:

  • IB Physics guide, which contains a chapter on Internal Assessment.
  • IB publication Managing safety in science laboratories and workshops. This includes a recommended approach to risk assessment, which we can assume students ought to follow in their IA. The table headings used are Type of hazard, Example of hazard, Potential risk, and Example of control measure.
  • IB publication IB sciences experimentation guidelines, which provides rules around the ways in which experiments can be conducted and gives some clues about what students should include in their risk assessments.
  • IB Physics Teacher Support Material. This includes the expectations of the teacher and the student, the stages of the process, discussions about the sufficiency of data and communication, and unpacking of the four criteria.
  • IB exemplar assessed work, which includes annotations, marks awarded and commentaries - and which probably creates a list of "what not to do" for experiments to avoid student plagiarism.

The skills required, related to the tools of mathematics, technology and experimental techniques, might include:

  • use of datalogging equipment
  • video analysis
  • use of Excel or LoggerPro
  • processing uncertainties
  • use of simulation software e.g. Interactive Physics and Algodoo
  • writing
  • careful measurement techniques

All IB publications can be located and downloaded by teachers on the Programme Resource Centre.

You might like to try a mini investigation or design lab first.

The 10 hours is the approximate time required from start to finish in the process, perhaps allocated approximately as follows:

  • Ideation sessions - 1 hour (ideally happening as part of your year-round classroom practice)
  • Developing a research question - 1 hour (in which the student starts to read more about their topic, develop a hypothesis, and check for equipment availability)
  • Deciding on a methodological procedure - 2 hours (a 'live' process of reading, designing, planning and testing, ideally with the student recording their decisions and observations as they go)
  • Collecting data - 2 hours (I have seen successful experiments that take anything from 2 minutes to 6 hours. The key is to avoid the impression that this is where all 10 hours are allocated.)
  • Writing a draft report - 3 hours (the student will write as they go and the teacher should check throughout)
  • Delivering the final report - 1 hour (depending on how 'complete' the draft is)

In my experience, the teacher has an enormous part to play in determining how long students spend overall and how smoothly things run.

Let's ponder an imaginary case study...

Mr Lion takes his role as a teacher very seriously and wants the very best from his class of 20 physicists. He plans a session where students are given an hour on the internet while thinking about what to do. The students' homework over the next week is to come up with an idea for a research question.

Mr Lion continues teaching content lessons during the week and then returns to the IA. Of the 20 in the class, five Googled "Physics IA ideas" and copied something, five are on the brink of PhDs with their ideas about string theory and black holes, five came up with nothing and five have something quite workable. Mr Lion says "no, try again tomorrow" to the first 15 and gets to work on sourcing equipment for the five that are ready to begin.

Of the 15 still thinking, five manage to get Mr Lion's approval the next day, and another five during the next. These students get going with their methodologies.

But five are still searching until the next week. By this time, a fortnight has passed and the affected students are still on zero marks. Mr Lion now knows he needs to focus, and he helps the students to develop research questions.

“Now to methodologies and data collection,” he thinks. With the help of a technician, all students are supported in accessing what they need, with a few compromises along the way. As he told his DP Coordinator that students would be finished in a month, he comes to the lab after school for two hours every day that week to help his students work during and beyond class - despite being tired - and supervises safety from his desk while students work.

The students now have a week to start and finish their drafts. Mr Lion reminds the class of some exemplars they had seen to help with formatting and requests that they submit their work a week later. As there is "so much content" in the course, Mr Lion returns to typical lessons.

Most students do submit work on the due date and, although Mr Lion is quietly relieved that some have not so that he can stagger his marking, he manages to get all but two handed in within another week by running an after-school session.

Mr Lion works thoughout his evenings and weekends, diligently reading every submission, handwriting detailed notes to himself and comments on the work. Unfortunately, some changed their research questions, quite a few selected an inappropriate graph type, and some forgot to control the necessary variables. Mr Lion kicks himself and organises additional after-school sessions for some students to do their data collection again. On average, he spends an hour marking per student, and after a fortnight he is ready to give the work back. He then organises individual 30-minute meetings with students in his mornings, breaks and lunchtimes to provide individual feedback whilst carrying on teaching content in class.

He realises everything has taken quite a bit longer than planned, so gives his class the summer vacation to work on their final drafts.

After the summer, the students could no longer read Mr Lion's handwriting and had forgotten the substance of their meetings. Now re-energized and eager for the students to do their best, he goes through things again and gives students two more months to get the work done.

Mr Lion's physics colleague is already finished with their class and asks Mr Lion when they can internally moderate, resulting in guilty feelings. In the end, Mr Lion yet again spends an hour marking per student because he has forgotten the feedback he gave the first time. And he is still chasing the last few stragglers until the bitter end.

Although there are some elements of good practice and countless examples of good intent, I know a thing or two about the downsides of this imaginary experience because I fell into some of the traps in my early career.

What are they?

  • Asking students to come up with ideas outside of the classroom and without a conversation
  • Allowing students to choose experiments that take more than 2-3 hours
  • Putting the burden on yourself to do all the hard work outside of the timetable
  • Allowing the students requiring the most support to fall behind
  • Ending up so tired during class that you are supervising rather than leading
  • Blaming yourself when things go wrong and over-compensating by giving students months of extensions
  • Losing track of students' time and efforts, which is to the detriment of their other subjects
  • Allowing the IA to become disproportionately time-consuming relative to the examination content
  • Not looking at drafts until the end
  • Persevering with content teaching at the expense of focus
  • Handwriting feedback without keeping a record
  • Allowing a 5-month gap between draft and final submissions
  • Creating a bottleneck for colleagues

Take time to ponder how you really do want things to go for your students, what is really in their best interests, and how you can play your part in students having a successful Diploma overall.

Although these solutions won't work in every context, we recommend:

  • providing some mini-IA opportunities beforehand
  • using a library or list of available apparatus for inspiration
  • allocating 10+ hours of classtime to the IA
  • taking responsibility for students selecting doable research questions
  • requiring that all students move as one through the process (to the best extent possible)
  • always being alert and responsive in real-time
  • giving feedback on a 'live' version of the draft
  • taking turns amongst a department to do all the marking (e.g. in exchange for marking all the mock examinations) to reduce internal moderation difficulties at the last minute

When a student asks for "an extension", it is often kinder to say "no" (especially if this is required by your school assessment policy). Extending the time available often raises a student's expectations without raising their reality, only making it harder to submit.

All materials on this website are for the exclusive use of teachers and students at subscribing schools for the period of their subscription. Any unauthorised copying or posting of materials on other websites is an infringement of our copyright and could result in your account being blocked and legal action being taken against you.

Help