IB Psychology IA HL Exemplar: Method

Here is an example of a Method section for an exemplar IB Psychology Internal Assessment (Higher Level).

Method

The method section is divided into four key sections: design, participants, materials and procedure.

Design

An independent samples design was used to avoid order effects: as the lists of words were identical, apart from the font, participants would have quickly guessed the point of the experiment, and they would have already learnt the words under the first condition. The participants were randomly allocated to two groups, by shuffling together the two lists and laying them out randomly on the desks.

Participants read and signed the informed consent form (Appendix A) and received standardized instructions and a debriefing that informed them of their rights (Appendices B and C)

The IV was the font in which the words were written – Calibri 12 pt italicized (disfluent) or non-italicized (fluent).

The DV was the number of two-syllable words recalled from the 25-word list.

Controlled variables were the words on the list, the location, the size and type of font (Calibri 12 pt) and the time given for memorizing and recall.

Participants

The twenty 17-18 year old IB Diploma student participants came from an international school with a wide ethnic mix of students from all over the world. Therefore, the target population is 17-18 year IB Diploma students in an ethnically-mixed international school.

Materials

• Informed consent form (Appendix A)
• Standardized instructions (Appendix B)
• Debriefing (Appendix C)
• List of 25 words in disfluent font for Group A (Appendix D)
• List of same 25 words in fluent font for Group B (Appendix E)
• Answer sheet (Group A)
• Answer sheet (Group B)

Procedure

1) A list of 25 common English two-syllable nouns was chosen randomly from an online site with the 100 most common English nouns (Brown, 2016).

2) A suitable room, with 20 desks spaced well apart was prepared. A timer was used.

3) The 20 lists (10 disfluent and 10 fluent) of 25 words were shuffled together and one was laid face down on each desk.

4) The participants entered, gave in their signed consent form and sat at any desk they chose.

5) They were asked not to turn over the paper.

6) The standardized instructions were read – explaining the procedure, which was to be conducted in silence (Appendix B).

7) The participants were asked to turn over the paper, the timer was started, and they were instructed that they had two minutes to try and memorize the words. They were not allowed to write anything.

8) After two minutes had passed, the timer was stopped, the papers were collected and the corresponding answer sheet (A or B) and a pencil was given to each participant.

9) Participants were asked not to write anything. The timer was started again and they were told that they had two minutes to recall as many words from the list as they could.

10) After two minutes had passed, the timer was stopped and the answers were collected.

11) Participants were debriefed and told that they could obtain the results from the researcher upon request. They then left.