One compulsory essay, 15 marks, about a study you have never seen. It sounds impossible to prepare for. It is not, because the study changes but the tools do not: the same six key concepts, applied to whatever is put in front of you.
📘 What you need to know
Section B is one compulsory ERQ worth 15 marks, based on an unseen research study printed in the paper.
You must discuss the study using two or more of: bias, causality, change, measurement, perspective, responsibility.
The study may be experimental (a lab experiment) or non-experimental (an interview, for example).
It will come from one of the four contexts: health and wellbeing, human development, human relationships, learning and cognition.
Two concepts is fine if the discussion is deep. More than two only helps if you still show range.
You are discussing the study, not retelling it. The examiner has already read it.
The method, start to finish
Concepts are chosen to fit the study, not the other way round. Pick the ones the study gives you most to say about.
Choosing the right concepts
Most studies hand you two or three obvious concepts. The trick is to notice which features of the study point at which concept.
Two concepts fully developed will beat four half-developed ones, so pick the two the study gives you the most material for.
A useful safety net: bias and measurement can be applied to nearly every study ever run. If nothing jumps out at you, those two will always give you something real to say.
What a concept paragraph looks like
Paragraph pattern
Name the concept → define it in one line → point at the exact feature of the study → explain the consequence for the findings → suggest what would improve it.
The fourth step is the one people skip. “The sample was all male” is an observation. “The sample was all male, so the findings cannot be generalised to women, and any conclusion about the behaviour in general is overstated” is a discussion.
Worked example
WORKED EXAMPLE
In the early 1960s, Milgram ran an obedience experiment. 40 male volunteers from one US town were paid to take part. In a lab, they were told to give increasingly severe electric shocks to a stranger, up to a level labelled fatal. The shocks were not real but participants believed they were. 65% went to the maximum level. Discuss this study with reference to two or more key concepts. [15 marks]
Three concepts, one paragraph each, plus a judgement. Below are the paragraph cores.
Bias
The sample carries several biases: all 40 participants were male, from one town, and they were paid volunteers. Volunteers tend to be more compliant and may have felt obliged to please the researcher, and having a maximum level on the machine may itself have suggested that reaching it was expected. So the obedience rate cannot be read as a general human figure.
Causality
The lab setting may have caused obedience as much as the orders did, since a high-status scientific institution signals that what is happening is legitimate. 35% resisted, which shows the situation did not force obedience. And if some participants doubted the shocks were real, the internal validity of the causal claim weakens further.
Responsibility
Participants were deceived about the true aim and believed they were causing serious harm, so protection from harm was compromised and many left with a distressing belief about themselves. Debriefing reduces but does not remove that harm, and the study would be unlikely to pass ethical review today.
Judgement
The study demonstrates something real about situational pressure, but its sampling and its ethics both limit what can be concluded and how far the finding travels.
Three concepts, each applied to a named featureEvery paragraph points at a specific detail of the study. That is what “discuss the study” means.
💡 Exam tip
Underline four things in the study before writing: sample, method, measure, anything ethically uncomfortable.
Name each concept in the first sentence of its paragraph. It makes the structure obvious to the marker.
Quote a figure or detail from the study in every paragraph.
Balance is rewarded: say what the study does well, not only what is wrong with it.
Give the essay 45 minutes, including planning. It is 15 of the 35 marks on the paper.
⚠ Common mix-up
Retelling the study. Summarising earns nothing; the examiner wrote it.
Defining concepts in the abstract. Every definition must be followed by “in this study…”.
Using one concept. Two is the minimum and it is stated in the question.
Piling up six shallow concepts. Breadth without depth scores badly.
No conclusion. Even a discussion needs a final judgement about what the study can support.
Up next: Paper 3, Question 1: What to Write — three marks, one limitation, and the discipline to stop writing.
Want this explained one-to-one?
Book a free session with an experienced IB Psychology tutor and get your trickiest topics made simple.
