Thinking Like Psychologists as IBDP Students Investigate the Mind

March 25, 2026

Why is it so hard to study when there is background noise?

How does the way information is presented to us influence the choices we make, especially when our social media algorithms present us with personally curated advertisements?

How does loaded language in the media shape what we remember and believe?

Year 12 IBDP Psychology students recently put these questions to the test by designing and conducting their own psychological investigations as part of their major Internal Assessment.

Demonstrating the inquiry-driven learning at the heart of the IBDP, students developed their own experiments, sampled their participants to represent the teenage population and analysed their findings to explore real-world psychological phenomena with ethically appropriate and safeguarded methods. A significant feat, alike to university students studying within the field of Psychology!

This year’s experimental focuses were grounded in Cognitive Processing, specifically the Working Memory Model and Dual Processing Model:

The effect of phonological distractions on working memory, examining how background noise, specifically music, can influence students’ ability to recall information.
The effect of framing bias in decision making, analysing how the way information is presented can shape the choices we make, specifically in advertising and marketing contexts.
The effect of availability heuristic on memory, investigating how easily accessible information, often amplified through loaded media language, can influence how people recall events.

In the IBDP, students develop the skills that underpin university level study; critical thinking, hands on student-led research, inquiry and collaboration.

Through this application of learning in authentic contexts, students are strengthening their understanding of human behaviour and becoming more aware of the cognitive pitfalls that influence their own memory, thinking and decision-making.