The research proposal and choosing a topic

What the research proposal is

The internal assessment (IA) in psychology is a research proposal: a written plan for an investigation into a real-life problem that affects a particular group of people. You design the study in detail, explain and justify every important decision, and discuss what it could find and why that would matter. You do not carry the study out. There are no participants, no data and no results.

The proposal is marked out of 24, with four criteria worth 6 marks each, and it is the same task at SL and HL. Your teacher marks it and a sample of the school’s work is moderated by the IB. The whole report has a limit of 2,200 words.

The task asks you to think like a psychologist who wants to improve people’s lives. Applied research usually begins with a problem (teenagers sleeping too little, newly arrived families struggling to settle, older adults feeling lonely), and the method is chosen afterwards to suit the evidence that would help. The IA asks you to work in the same order. It rewards justified decisions: why this group, why this method, why these questions, why these ethical safeguards.

What the proposal is not

Many weak proposals go wrong because the student has the wrong picture of the task. The table sets out the most common misunderstandings.

Because the study is never conducted, a proposal may include things a school student could not do. You could propose interviewing adults who have been diagnosed with depression, a study that follows the same students for three years, or a sample of 400 people from several schools. What matters is that each choice is appropriate and explained. The proposal is marked on the quality of your reasoning, not on whether you have designed a perfect study; every design has weaknesses, and recognising them is part of the task.

How the IA links to the six concepts

The proposal draws on all six concepts of the course, and seeing these links makes the decisions easier to explain.

The four sections and the four criteria

The proposal is written in four sections, and each section is marked by one criterion. Following this structure exactly makes it easy for your teacher and the moderator to find each element, and it stops you from spending words on material that earns no marks.

The criteria are equal in value, so a balanced proposal is a strong one. A common pattern in weak proposals is a long, well-researched introduction followed by a thin discussion written in the last hundred words. The table summarises what each section contains.

Choosing a population of interest

The population of interest is the group your proposal is about. It is the group affected by the real-life problem and the group whose behaviour you want to understand. Every later decision (the aim, the sampling technique, the wording of the items, the ethics) depends on who this group is, so it is worth defining it carefully at the start.

The population can come from your school community, your local community or the national community. It does not have to be a group you can reach, because you will not collect data. It can be a group you know well (students at your school) or a group you have never met (nurses working night shifts, refugee families in your country).

What makes a population of interest well defined

A well-defined population is specific enough that a reader could decide whether a given person belongs to it. Three features usually achieve this: an age range or life stage, a shared characteristic linked to the problem, and a place or setting.

A population that is too broad produces an aim that cannot be answered and a sample that cannot represent it. A population that is too narrow (for example, “my three best friends”) makes the problem trivial and the findings useless beyond a handful of people. Aim for a group that is large enough to matter and specific enough to describe.

Choosing a real-life problem

The proposal investigates a real-life problem: a situation that harms, limits or worries the population of interest, and that psychology can help to understand. “Real-life” means the problem exists outside the classroom and affects people’s well-being, learning, relationships or health. Typical starting areas include sleep and mental health, body image and self-esteem, stress and memory, social media and self-esteem, and language learning and acculturation.

A good problem passes five tests. Running through them early saves weeks of work on a topic that later has to be abandoned.

1. It is psychological. It concerns behaviour, thinking, emotion or relationships, and it can be explained by theories and research from the biological, cognitive or sociocultural approach.

2. It affects your population of interest. You can show that the problem is real for this group, ideally with evidence such as survey figures or published research on similar groups.

3. Research exists on it. You can find at least two published studies whose findings relate to it. Without them, Criterion A cannot be completed.

4. It can be studied with one of the four permitted methods. You can picture an experiment, interview, observation or questionnaire that would produce useful data on it.

5. It is ethical and allowed. It is not on the list of banned topics, and it could be studied in a way an ethics committee would approve.

Personal interest matters too. You will spend about twenty hours of lesson time on the proposal, plus your own time, so a problem you care about makes the reading and writing easier. Personal interest also gives you material for the reflexivity part of the Discussion, because your reasons for choosing the topic are a possible source of bias.

Problems that work and problems that do not

From topic to research question

A good proposal moves from a broad topic to a single, focused question in steps. Each step narrows the one above it, and each narrowing is a decision you can explain in the introduction.

You may state your focus as an aim (“To investigate…”) or as a research question (“To what extent…?”). Either is acceptable; what matters is that it is clear and focused on the population of interest. A focused aim names the variables or experience being studied, the population, and the kind of relationship or understanding sought. Both versions are shown for the running example.

• Aim: To investigate the relationship between self-reported school-night sleep duration and mental well-being among students aged 16–18 in the final two years of secondary school at three international schools in one city.

• Research question: To what extent is self-reported school-night sleep duration related to mental well-being among students aged 16–18 in the final two years of secondary school at three international schools in one city?

The wording also has to match the method. An experiment can test whether one variable affects another, so its aim can use cause-and-effect language. A questionnaire, interview or observation can show what people do, think or experience and how measured variables are related, but not what causes what. Writing “the effect of sleep on well-being” in a questionnaire proposal promises something the method cannot deliver, a problem of causality that loses marks in Criterion A.

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The four permitted methods

The proposal must use one of the four methods studied in the class practicals. Each has permitted sub-types, and you may choose any of them.

The IA asks you to apply what you know about these methods, including their strengths and limitations, to one investigation. A survey or questionnaire may be used to look for a relationship between two measured variables, as in the running example. The method is still called a questionnaire; you then explain that the analysis would be correlational and what that means for conclusions.

Topic ideas for each method

The same broad area can usually be studied with any of the four methods, each giving a different kind of answer. The ideas in the table are starting points, not finished aims; each would still need a sharper population and real research behind it.

Ethics rules and banned topics

Although nobody takes part, the proposal must be designed as if it had to be approved by an ethics committee. The ethical standards of the class practicals apply: informed consent, the right to withdraw, protection from harm, anonymity and confidentiality, debriefing where deception is used, and extra safeguards for children and other vulnerable groups. Three further rules apply to the proposal.

• No ingestion. Participants may not be given anything to eat or drink, including caffeine, energy drinks or sweets. Studying self-reported diet (“How many caffeinated drinks did you have yesterday?”) is allowed.

• No animals. All participants must be people.

• No unjustifiably unethical designs. Withholding food, forcing people to take part and publicly humiliating participants are examples of designs that would never be approved.

The proposal can, however, address some sensitive topics that are not allowed in class practicals, such as mental health, body image, neurodiversity and cultural differences. These topics come with heavier ethical responsibilities. A proposal on body image among adolescents, for example, must explain how participants would be protected from distress, how the data would be kept anonymous, and where participants could find support afterwards.

Topics that cannot be the focus

Some topics are too distressing to be read and marked by teachers and moderators, so they must not be the focus of the proposal:

• abuse of any kind (sexual, physical or emotional);

• self-harm, including suicide;

• pornography, rape or other sexual acts;

• serial killers or acts of torture.

The list is not complete. Your teacher may judge that other topics are unsuitable, particularly ones that are sensitive or controversial where you live. Agree your topic with your teacher before starting the reading.

Word limit and format

The proposal is a written report of no more than 2,200 words. Your teacher and the moderator stop reading at 2,200 words, so anything after the limit earns nothing. If the Discussion falls beyond the limit, a whole criterion is lost.

What counts and what does not

Your teacher will tell you how words in tables are counted; the safest approach is to count them and keep tables short. Tables, graphs or pictures may be used where they help, for example a flow chart of the procedure. You do not need to include a consent form, a debriefing script or standardised instructions; the tool is the only completed material the appendix must contain.

Sources may be in any language, which allows you to use research carried out with populations in your own country. Qualitative and quantitative designs are equally acceptable: a semi-structured interview proposal can reach the top band just as a true experiment can.

Planning the proposal

About twenty hours of lesson time are given to the IA. This includes your teacher explaining the task, time to research the topic, a review of the ethics rules, writing a rough draft, and meetings with your teacher. A plan that spreads the work over two to three months avoids the most common problem, which is a rushed Discussion.

Your teacher normally comments on one complete rough draft, so make that draft as complete as possible, with every section present, rather than handing in a polished introduction and notes for the rest. Feedback on a whole proposal is far more useful than feedback on one section.

The running example: sleep and well-being

The running example is one invented proposal, followed through every criterion so that each decision can be traced from the topic to the discussion. It is a model written to illustrate the advice, not a real student’s work.

Summary

• The IA is a research proposal: a justified plan for an investigation that is never carried out, marked out of 24 with four criteria of 6 marks each.

• It is written in four sections (Introduction, Research methodology, Data collection, Discussion), each marked by one criterion, in no more than 2,200 words.

• The population of interest is the group the proposal is about; define it by age or life stage, a shared characteristic linked to the problem, and a setting.

• A good real-life problem is psychological, affects the population, has published research on it, suits one of the four methods and is ethical.

• The aim or research question names the population, the variables or experience studied and the kind of relationship sought, in wording the method can deliver.

• The four permitted methods are experiment (true or quasi-), interview (structured, semi-structured or focus group), observation and survey or questionnaire.

• Ethics apply as if the proposal had to pass an ethics committee: no ingestion, no animals, no unjustifiably unethical designs, and no focus on abuse, self-harm or suicide, sexual acts, or serial killers and torture.

• Plan the work in stages, balance the four sections, and submit a complete rough draft for feedback.

Self-check

• To do:

  I can explain what a research proposal is and why it is never carried out.

• To do:

  I can describe the four sections of the proposal and the criterion that marks each.

• To do:

  I can define a population of interest precisely and explain how it differs from a sample.

• To do:

  I can test a starting idea against the five features of a good real-life problem.

• To do:

  I can write a focused aim or research question whose wording matches the method.

• To do:

  I can state the four permitted methods and their sub-types, and choose one that fits an aim.

• To do:

  I can apply the ethics rules and list the topics that cannot be the focus of the proposal.

• To do:

  I can state the word limit, what is counted, and what goes on the title page and in the appendix.