Purpose of internal assessment

Internal assessment is an integral part of the course and is a compulsory component for both SL and HL students. It enables students to demonstrate the application of their skills and knowledge, and to pursue their personal interests, without the time limitations and other constraints that are associated with examination papers. The internal assessment should, as far as possible, be woven into normal practice and classroom teaching, and not be a separate activity conducted after a course has been taught.

The internal assessment requirements at SL and at HL are the same. The time allowed is 20 hours, and the weightings are 25% at SL and 20% at HL. Students are required to undertake fieldwork collecting primary information and produce one written report that is based on a fieldwork question.

The emphasis of the written report must be analytical and include focus on the method(s) and technologies (if any) employed for information collection, its treatment and analysis. A purely descriptive report and/or a long theoretical introduction must be avoided.

Hypotheses

Hypothesis 1: We expect to Umanose to be a destructive beach

Hypothesis 2: Beach material will increase in size and become more angular the greater distance from the shore

Hypothesis 3: We expect to see mainly erosional landforms resulting from marine processes on this discordant coastline 

Introduction (300 words)

Criterion A: Fieldwork question and geographic context

The Aim: What is the core goal of this investigation?

Comment briefly on the geographic context:

• Explaining why and where the fieldwork investigation is to be carried out. 

  • include relevant spatial, physical, socio‑economic conditions and other background information, concepts or characteristics

• include a student generated map of the research area and/or the locations used in the fieldwork investigation 

  • All places mentioned in your text should be labeled on the map

• State the area(s) of the syllabus to which the study relates, which geographic inquiry topic or sub-topic in the syllabus:

  • Syllabus content part 1, Geographic themes, Option B: Oceans and their coastal margins, sub-topic 2, interactions between oceans and coastal places (The role of coastal processes, wind and vegetation in sand dune development) Do not cut and paste!

• This criterion assesses the focus and geographic context of the fieldwork and to what extent the link between the fieldwork question and the geographic context (that is, material in the syllabus, a relevant syllabus topic or geographical theory) is made clear.

Criterion C and D: (500 + 850 words)

Quality and treatment of information collected and Written Analysis

The treatment and display of material and the written analysis must be integrated within this section.

• Display the information collected using the most appropriate techniques. These techniques must be the most effective way of representing the type of information collected and must be well used. 

  • Techniques may include statistical tests (including confidence limits), graphs, diagrams, maps, annotated photographs and images, matrices and field sketches.

• This criterion assesses the quality of information and data collected and its suitability for analysis in criterion D, whether it is appropriate and a sufficient range of techniques have been used for the presentation of information, and whether the presentation follows accepted conventions (that is, the numbering, labelling, and annotating of tables, graphs and diagrams).

Useful links for Geography Skills

Written analysis

Demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of the fieldwork investigation by

•  interpreting and explaining the information you have collected in relation to the fieldwork question. 

  • This includes recognizing any trends and spatial patterns found in the information collected. 

  • Where appropriate, an attempt should be made to identify and explain any anomalies.

• Do not answer the research question. Instead, analyze wether each hypotheses have been proven or not

This criterion assesses the quality of the analysis of the results, referring to:

• • links to the question and hypotheses formulated

  • geographic context (that is, secondary sources: geographical theory, the syllabus, or the relevant syllabus topic)

  • information collected

  • statistics used (descriptive techniques—that is, graphs, charts, histograms and so on; as well as statistical techniques—that is, correlations, regression, and so on)

  • illustrative material.

Criterion F: 300 words

Evaluation

• Review your investigative methodology, including methods of collecting primary information. 

  • Consider any factors that may have affected the validity of the data, including personal bias and unpredicted external circumstances such as the weather.

  • Do not evaluate the execution of data collection, just the method. 

• Suggest specific and plausible ways in which the study might have been improved and could be extended in the future.

This criterion assesses the student’s ability to review the investigative methodology, by weighing up the strengths and/or weaknesses of the chosen method, and suggest improvements.

What does this mean?

• Revisit all the methods that you used. If you didn't use a particular methodology, do not evaluate it and take it out of your methodology too. 

• You do not need to evaluate every method. 

• Now that your experiment is done, think of the think that went well, in terms of collecting quality data. (Not how well your team worked together.)

  • Pick the ones you feel you have something relevant to evaluate, you will need to describe:

    • the strengths of the method on collecting quality data

    • the weaknesses of the method on collecting quality data

      • FOR EACH WEAKNESS, a potential improvement to the method and an explanation of the potential impacts of these improvements on future study and data collection. This is to show that although you know your research wasn't perfect, you have the geographic skills and knowledge necessary to improve it, if time and resources allowed. 

  • Do not make this one big table