Internal assessment criteria

23 Nov Internal assessment criteria

The Internal Assessment is scored against the following criteria:

• Identifying the context (6 marks, 20%)
• Planning (6 marks, 20%)
• Results, analysis, and conclusion (6 marks, 20%)
• Discussion and evaluation (6 marks, 20%)
• Applications (3 marks, 10%)
• Communication (3 marks, 10%)

The list below summarizes what the IB is looking for in the ESS IA, and it serves as a general outline for organizing the IA:

• Identifying the context:
  • state a relevant, coherent and focused research question
  • discuss a relevant environmental issue (either local or global) that provides the context for the research question
  • explain the connections between the environmental issue (either local or global) and the research question.
• Planning: 
  • design a repeatable method appropriate to the research question that allows for the collection of sufficient relevant data
  • justify the choice of sampling strategy used
  • describe the risk assessment and ethical considerations where applicable.
• Results, analysis, and conclusion:
  • construct diagrams, charts or graphs of all relevant quantitative and/or qualitative data appropriately
  • analyse the data correctly and completely so that all relevant patterns are displayed
  • interpret trends, patterns or relationships in the data, so that a valid conclusion to the research question is deduced.
• Discussion and evaluation:
  • evaluate the conclusion in the context of the environmental issue
  • discuss strengths, weaknesses and limitations within the method used
  • suggest modifications addressing one or more significant weaknesses with large effect and further areas of research.
• Applications:
  • justify one potential application and/or solution to the environmental issue that has been discussed in the context, based on the findings of the study
  • evaluate relevant strengths, weaknesses and limitations of this solution.