Brad Cartwright

What is The Internal Assessment in IB Economics?

August 16, 2024

And we’re baaaack!

I hope you had a long and relaxing break full of exactly what you wanted to fill it up with.

I certainly did—and it feels good and refreshing to begin the year anew.

So, with that in mind, I thought it would be helpful to explain the core pieces of the Internal Assessment in IB Economics.  

If you’re new to the IB, the first question to answer is “What exactly is the Internal Assessment?”  By the end of reading this, I hope you will feel clear on exactly what this thing is.  

But first, let’s just put it out there—why is the IA so daunting for IB Economics Teachers?

Here’s why…

• There’s a lack of formal training on the Internal Assessment
• Often, we are the only IB Economics teacher in the building
• The Internal Assessment is high stakes for the kids
• Economics is usually the first IA the kids have to write
• We essentially have three “IAs” as opposed to other courses
• Previous results can be misleading—both for the better and for the worse

Simply put, this thing is hard to teach, manage, grade, and support.

But the first step is just to understand what this is.   And that’s what we’re going to concentrate on today.

We’ll start simply.

The “IA” means "Internal Assessment".

As opposed to "External Assessment".

"External Assessments" are graded (marked) by IB Examiners—“external” of the school--at the end of the year. 

“Internal Assessments” are marked "internally" at the school.

Which means, you, the IB Economics teacher.  And the IA becomes part of the calculus of a student's IB Composite Score for each IB Course they take.  There are IAs in every IB course.

So, guess what? It is super important.  Getting it right is vital to your students’ overall success in the course—and to your success in the classroom.

Let’s break it down in a simple way so that we know exactly what the task is.

Here we go….

The Big-Big Picture

Link.  That’s the keyword to have in your head.  Link.  

It’s a link-paper.

The IA is meant to link three things together.  

• A Real-Life Example they find on their own.
• An Economic Theory they have learned with you in class.
• One of the Nine Key Concepts.

That’s it.  That’s the task.  

Link.  Link.  Link. 

A successful IA links together a real-life example to an economic theory and one of the Nine Key Concepts.

It’s that simple.  

That’s what the IA has “to do”.  And it can't be longer than 800 words.

So, it’s an 800-word economic policy link-paper.

And the students need to write three of them.  We’ll get into this in a second, but first, this is important:

The IB calls each one of these economic policy papers a “Commentary”.  Why?  

Because it’s the student’s commentary on the validity of a government’s economic policy based on the economic theory you taught them in class.  Pretty cool, right? 

Think of each student as an economic policy “commentator”.  So, they write a “Commentary.”

Imagine a student as a government economic advisor being asked to produce an economic policy paper for a politician.  That's what the IB wants from these kids.

Ain’t it beautiful?

At the end of the two-year course, you will have a portfolio of three Commentaries from each of your students that you will have graded and marked.  Each set of three Commentaries is what the IB means when they say “a student’s IA Portfolio.”  A sampling of these portfolios will be submitted to the IB via their eCoursework platform at the end of the course.

There’s the big-big picture stuff.  

Now let’s take a look at each one of the links.

Link #1.  The Real-Life Example from a News Article 

This is perhaps the most important part of the process.  A well-chosen news article about a real-life example creates a much easier process for the kid.  A poorly chosen article wastes an enormous amount of time.

So, be laser-sharp here as a teacher.  

The students are going to look for a news article about an economic policy from within the last year from the date from which the Commentary is written.  So basically, the real-life example has to have taken place in the last twelve months. That’s required by the IB.

Best advice I can give you?

Tell the kids to look for articles from news sources that would have been otherwise printed if we lived 50 years ago.  In other words, a newspaper or a magazine.  I prefer newspapers.

Here’s a brief list of good sources for students to use:

• The Guardian
• The New York Times
• The Wall Street Journal
• The South China Post
• Sydney Morning Journal
• Jakarta Post
• Japan Times
• Washington Post
• San Francisco Chronicle
• The Times of India
• Los Angeles Times
• The Boston Globe
• The Cleveland Plain Dealer (I’m originally from Cleveland)
• ……or any similar credible news source.

Don’t let kids choose The Economist magazine.  Those articles are essentially commentaries in and of themselves.  It won’t give them much to add to the analysis or evaluation.

Also, no blogs or opinion pieces.  The Commentary is an opinion piece.  Again, it won’t leave much for the kid to add.

Lastly, two solid pieces of advice for you:

• When you read the title of the article, if you can’t see exactly which diagram the kid is going to draw, tell the kid to move on.  It’ll be too convoluted otherwise.  
• The best articles are proposed economic policies.  Why?  Because they haven’t been implemented yet, so it is wide open for the student’s analysis and evaluation.

This link may be helpful for you and your students.  It's a link to news articles that I have vetted that may be suitable for an IA.  

Link #2.  The Economic Theory

This one is the easiest for us as teachers.  Why?   Because this is the stuff we teach in class.

Remember, each Commentary must link a real-life example to an economic theory to one of the Nine Key Concepts.

So, the students must write a Commentary in each of the following three sections of the syllabus:

• Microeconomics 
• Macroeconomics
• The Global Economy

But what economic theories are the best within those broad subject areas?

Here’s my take…

In Microeconomics, have students focus on real-life examples that hit on the economic theories of Government Intervention and Mark Failure.   Why?  Because not only do each of these theories have four distinct diagrams to analyze and evaluate but also it’s easiest to find news articles about these topics.   

In Macroeconomics, have students focus on real-life examples that hit on the economic theories of Low Unemployment, Low and Stable Rate of Inflation, and Economic Growth.  Why?   For the same reasons as in Microeconomics.  These topics are easy to find and lead directly to obvious diagrams.

In The Global Economy, have students focus on real-life examples that hit on the economic theories of Free Trade and Protectionism.  Just that.  Why?  Same reason.  Because it is easiest to find articles about these topics in the news.

Do you see a trend here?   Pick the easiest economic theories for students to find news articles about.  Writing an IA is hard enough.  Don’t make things complicated when they needn’t be.

There are no extra points given for creativity here.  Go simple.   And stay there.  

 

Link #3.  The Nine Key Concepts

These are the “lenses” through which your student should view this real-life example linked (of course) to one of the economic theories you have taught.  

Here they are courtesy of Jocelyn Blink & Ian Dorton’s excellent textbook:

 

I love these Key Concepts.   

The IB added them for the Class of 2022 exam cycle and I just love them.  They provide meaning to why governments create economic policies in the first place.   

For the IA a student must choose one for each commentary—so three total—and they can’t reuse a key concept.  So, if they use Sustainability in their Microeconomics IA for example, they can’t use it again.  Pretty simple.  

What are my favorites?

For Microeconomics, I love Sustainability or Intervention.  

For Macroeconomics, I like Economic Well-Being or Equity.  

For The Global Economy, just go Interdependence.  It’s too perfect.  

No points for creativity.

Strive for simple and obvious in all things IA.

Then in their actual IA, I advise that the student refer to their Key Concept a minimum of five times throughout their Commentary.

For more information on the Nine Key Concepts themselves, you may find this video helpful.

Where does that leave us?  

I hope you feel more informed, clearer, and more confident about teaching the Internal Assessment.

There’s no getting around or diminishing its importance.  

The Internal Assessment is hugely important to the students as it makes up 30% of a High Level student’s overall composite score in Economics and 20% for Standard Level students.  

It matters a lot.

In an upcoming newsletter, I’m going to dig a bit deeper into how to actually teach this thing.   So, stay tuned for that.  

Also, I’ll be hosting a teacher workshop on September 7^th called, Effectively Teaching the Internal Assessment in Economics.  Here’s the link if you’re interested in joining us.  

If you can’t make it on the 7^th, there is an on-demand version of the workshop that may interest you.  You can see that here. 

Wishing you the best and I hope you found this week’s newsletter helpful to the great work you do out there!

See you next Friday.