IB Psychology IA example: an annotated research proposal for the 2027 course

Extract"This proposal aims to investigate whether having their own phone face down on the desk, on silent, reduces the number of word pairs 16–18-year-old IB Diploma students recall after a 10-minute study period, compared with leaving the phone in a bag outside the room. The question matters at my school, where Diploma students spend free periods revising in a supervised study hall and phones are allowed on desks. If the phone's presence alone lowers what students retain, a hand-in rule would cost students little and could raise the value of hours they already spend studying.

Ward et al. (2017) found that adults whose phone was in another room outperformed those whose phone sat on the desk on tests of working memory capacity, even though the phones were silent and face down. This suggests presence, not notifications, is the active ingredient, so in this proposal phones are silent in both conditions. Thornton et al. (2014) found that a phone's presence impaired performance mainly on more demanding tasks. A recall test that is too easy could therefore hide an effect, which is why the task here is piloted to sit well below full marks (criterion C)."

Extract"An experiment is chosen because the aim is causal: whether the phone's presence changes recall. A questionnaire about phone habits could show that heavy phone users report poorer studying, but not whether the phone on the desk is responsible. An independent-samples design is used because a repeated-measures design would let participants guess the aim after the second condition and would require two equally hard word lists.

Participants (about 40) will be recruited by opportunity sampling from Year 12 and 13 Diploma students at my school and randomly allocated to the two conditions by drawing numbered slips, which spreads differences in memory ability and phone habits across groups. Sessions run in the same study room at the same time of day. Participants study 20 word pairs for 10 minutes, complete a 3-minute filler task (simple arithmetic), then write as many second words as they can when shown each first word."

Thin"I will get informed consent, protect confidentiality and allow participants to withdraw."

Stronger"Participants will be told the study is about memory for word pairs, not about phones, because knowing the aim could change how they behave with their phone. This is mild deception, so every participant will be debriefed straight after the session and offered the chance to withdraw their data. Because some participants are under 18, the school's rules on parental consent will be followed. Nobody will look at or touch a participant's phone; in the bag condition, phones go into the participant's own bag, which stays in the corridor by the door."

Extract"The tool is a list of 20 word pairs and a recall sheet (Appendix 1). Pairs link a concrete English noun to an unrelated noun (for example candle – harbour) so that no participant can use subject knowledge, which would happen with Biology or Economics terms. Each correct second word scores 1 point, giving 0 to 20. Spelling errors are accepted if the word is recognisable, and this rule is written on the marking sheet so scoring is consistent.

Three challenges are expected. First, a ceiling effect: if most students recall 18 or more, a difference between conditions could not show. A pilot with five students from another year group will be used to adjust the list length, aiming for an average around half marks. Second, rehearsal during the filler task, which the arithmetic task reduces by keeping working memory busy. Third, scorer bias: a classmate who does not know which condition each sheet came from will score all sheets, using condition codes on the back."

Extract"If the bag group recalls clearly more pairs, this would support Ward et al.'s finding in a younger population and a realistic study setting, and the study hall could trial a phone shelf by the door during free periods. If there is no difference, a rule would not be justified on recall grounds alone, and the school should not remove phones that some students use for revision apps. A difference only among participants who report checking their phone often would suggest targeting advice rather than a blanket rule.

I am an IB student who believes phones distract me, so I may run the phone condition differently without meaning to, for example by sounding less encouraging. A script read word for word in both conditions, and blind scoring, reduce this. A further method would be semi-structured interviews with five students from the phone condition about what they thought about during the study period. That would show whether the phone pulled attention through thoughts about messages, which the recall score alone cannot tell us."