What this resource is
This framework re-presents the Diploma Programme Psychology Higher Level course — the guide first assessed in 2027 — as a single, prerequisite-ordered teaching sequence rather than eight chapters taught in numerical order, and not as a Standard Level course with the extensions appended. It is built on three convictions: that topics should be taught in the order their dependencies require, that each should be taught to its full depth rather than its minimum, and that the connections between them should be made explicit so that students see psychology as one connected subject rather than twenty-four separate ones.
Two departures from the order of the guide do most of the work. Research methods and data analysis are taught first, because Paper 2 examines the class practicals, Paper 3 examines data, and the internal assessment proposal has to specify an analysis. And the three extension lenses are taught as three phases at the end, each running once through the four contexts — which is what turns them into a review of the whole course rather than three more chapters.
Inside this document
- 01The design principle — how topics are classified and ordered
- 02The Teaching Spine — the full 24-topic flow, at a glance
- 03Why the Extensions Come Last — the prerequisite feeder map
- 04The Sequence at a Glance — every topic with syllabus code, role and hours
- 05The 24 Topics in Depth — depth, interconnection and practical angle for each
- 06Time Allocation & Pacing — reconciled to 240 hours, finishing by end of January
The design principle
Every topic is classified by the role it plays in the sequence:
- Foundational — self-contained, and a prerequisite for later topics.
- Developmental — extends one or more foundations.
- Synthesis — applied topics that draw several earlier strands together, taught once those strands are secure. At Higher Level most of the course sits here by design: the health and wellbeing context needs all three approaches at once, and every one of the twelve extension topics revisits a context already taught through a new lens.
Higher Level adds ninety hours to the Standard Level course, and they arrive in two very different forms. Data analysis and interpretation is a toolkit, so it is taught in the methods phase alongside the designs that generate the data, not as a separate statistics module in Year 2 — which is what makes Paper 3 revision of something already used rather than an introduction to something new. The extensions — culture, motivation and technology — are the opposite: the guide states plainly that they are not standalone units but further inquiry into the four contexts, so each is taught as a phase of four topics, one per context, in the same order the contexts were originally taught. The consequence is that the last seventy-four hours of the course are a structured second pass over everything already learned, which is why almost every topic in them is classified as synthesis. The six concepts — bias, causality, change, measurement, perspective and responsibility — are named topic by topic below rather than gathered into a chapter of their own.
IB DEMYSTIFIEDExaminers · Moderators · Mentors
The Teaching Spine
Prerequisite-ordered flow · 24 topics · Psychology HLTeach top to bottom — each phase is a prerequisite for the next. Colour shows each topic’s role; the pill shows the phase’s teaching hours.
PHASE A38 teaching hours
1Research Methods
2Evaluating Research
3Data Analysis
▼
PHASE B28 teaching hours
4Thinking & Learning
5Memory
▼
PHASE C26 teaching hours
6Development
7Identity & Self
▼
PHASE D24 teaching hours
8Group Behaviour
9Relationships
▼
PHASE E30 teaching hours
10Mental Health
11Health Behaviour
12Treatment
▼
PHASE F25 teaching hours
13Culture & Wellbeing
14Culture & Development
15Culture & Relationships
16Culture & Cognition
▼
PHASE G24 teaching hours
17Motivation & Health
18Motivation & Development
19Motivation at Work
20Motivation & Learning
▼
PHASE H25 teaching hours
21Tech & Mental Health
22Tech & Development
23Tech & Relationships
24Tech & Memory
Role:
Foundational
Developmental
Synthesis — taught late
Total taught content: 220 h · + 20 h internal assessment = 240 h
The full 24-topic sequence. Teach top to bottom; each phase is a prerequisite for the next.
IB DEMYSTIFIEDExaminers · Moderators · Mentors
Why the Extensions Come Last
The prerequisite feeder mapEach synthesis topic (right) can only be taught at depth once its feeders (left) are in place. A gold arrow means ‘is a prerequisite for’.
12. Prevention and Psychological Treatment
10 · Psychological disorders11 · Health-related behaviour4 · Conditioning — the basis of CBT3 · Data analysis — reading a trial
➤
12 · Prevention & Treatment
Treatment is a test of the explanation taught two topics earlier.
13. Culture and Psychological Wellbeing
10 · Psychological disorders8 · Cultural dimensions12 · Diagnosis & treatment2 · Validity of an instrument
➤
13 · Culture & Wellbeing
The lens only works on a context the student already knows.
16. Culture, Learning and Cognition
5 · Memory — cultural schemas4 · Schema theory14 · Etic & emic approaches3 · Publication bias & effect size
➤
16 · Culture & Cognition
The bilingualism dispute is a statistical dispute.
20. Motivation, Learning and Academic Behaviour
4 · Reinforcement & learning5 · Memory & retention17 · Intrinsic & extrinsic motivation3 · Self-report & measurement
➤
20 · Motivation & Learning
The lens turns back on its own measurement.
24. Technology, Learning and Memory
5 · Working memory & cognitive load4 · Dual-process thinking21 · Technology & wellbeing evidence3 · Interpreting contested data
➤
24 · Technology & Memory
The last topic of the course, and the most contested literature in it.
How to read this
- Right-hand boxes are the topics that draw the most strands together.
- Left-hand chips are the topics they depend on.
- A gold arrow means ‘is a prerequisite for’.
- Every feeder sits earlier in the spine, so by the time the topic is taught its feeders are done.
- The whole argument for the order in one image: sequence by dependency, not by chapter number.
Each synthesis topic can be taught at depth only once its feeders are in place.
The sequence at a glance
Every topic in teaching order, with its syllabus code, its role and its teaching hours. Codes marked ‘HL’ are Higher Level content. The suggested Year 1 / Year 2 boundary falls at the end of Phase D and is adjustable.
| # | Topic | Syllabus | Role | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phase A — Studying Behaviour Scientifically (38 h) | ||||
| 1 | Psychological Research Approaches | 5.1 | Foundational | 12 h |
| 2 | Designing and Evaluating Psychological Research | 5.2 | Developmental | 10 h |
| 3 | Analysing and Interpreting Psychological Data | 5.3 HL | Developmental | 16 h |
| Phase B — Learning, Thinking and Cognitive Processes (28 h) | ||||
| 4 | Learning and Decision-Making | 4.1 | Foundational | 14 h |
| 5 | Memory and Cognitive Function | 4.2 | Developmental | 14 h |
| Phase C — Human Growth and Psychological Development (26 h) | ||||
| 6 | Understanding Developmental Processes | 2.1 | Foundational | 13 h |
| 7 | Development of Identity and Self | 2.2 | Developmental | 13 h |
| Phase D — Social Interaction and Relationships (24 h) | ||||
| 8 | Behaviour in Social Groups | 3.1 | Developmental | 13 h |
| 9 | Formation and Maintenance of Relationships | 3.2 | Developmental | 11 h |
| Phase E — Mental Health and Wellbeing (30 h) | ||||
| 10 | Understanding Psychological Disorders | 1.1 | Synthesis | 14 h |
| 11 | Health-Related Behaviour and Psychological Factors | 1.2 | Synthesis | 8 h |
| 12 | Prevention and Psychological Treatment | 1.3 | Synthesis | 8 h |
| Phase F — Culture Across the Contexts (25 h) | ||||
| 13 | Culture and Psychological Wellbeing | 6.1 HL | Synthesis | 7 h |
| 14 | Culture and Human Development | 6.2 HL | Synthesis | 6 h |
| 15 | Culture and Interpersonal Relationships | 6.3 HL | Synthesis | 6 h |
| 16 | Culture, Learning and Cognition | 6.4 HL | Synthesis | 6 h |
| Phase G — Motivation Across the Contexts (24 h) | ||||
| 17 | Motivation and Health Behaviour | 7.1 HL | Synthesis | 6 h |
| 18 | Motivation and Human Development | 7.2 HL | Synthesis | 6 h |
| 19 | Motivation in Social and Work Settings | 7.3 HL | Synthesis | 6 h |
| 20 | Motivation, Learning and Academic Behaviour | 7.4 HL | Synthesis | 6 h |
| Phase H — Technology Across the Contexts (25 h) | ||||
| 21 | Technology and Mental Health | 8.1 HL | Synthesis | 7 h |
| 22 | Technology and Human Development | 8.2 HL | Synthesis | 6 h |
| 23 | Technology and Social Relationships | 8.3 HL | Synthesis | 6 h |
| 24 | Technology, Learning and Memory | 8.4 HL | Synthesis | 6 h |
| Total taught content | 220 h | |||
Scroll the table sideways on narrow screens.
The 24 topics in depth
Each topic carries its teaching depth, its interconnections with other topics, and the concepts and class practical it most naturally supports — the practicals being what Paper 2 Section A is examined on and what the internal assessment proposal is built from.
Filter by role
Showing all 24 topics in teaching order.
Phase A — Studying Behaviour Scientifically
Research methods are the first phase, not the last, and at Higher Level data analysis is taught with them rather than separately. Paper 2 examines the class practicals, Paper 3 examines data analysis and interpretation, and the internal assessment asks for a research proposal that has to specify an analysis. All three are better served by a student who met the statistics alongside the designs that generate them.
1. Psychological Research Approaches
- Teach to this depth
- The four methods the class practicals and the internal assessment proposal are built on, taught as design decisions rather than as definitions. Experiments: independent and dependent variables operationalised, control of confounding variables, laboratory, field and natural designs, and the reason random allocation is what licenses a causal claim. Observations: naturalistic and controlled, participant and non-participant, overt and covert, with behavioural categories and inter-observer agreement. Surveys and questionnaires: item construction, response formats, and the gap between a construct and the proxy used to measure it. Interviews: structured, semi-structured and unstructured, and the interviewer’s own effect on the data. Correlational studies, with the co-variation and causation distinction made explicit and then repeated whenever it is threatened. Case studies and their depth-against-generalisability trade-off. Ethics — informed consent, deception, debriefing, protection from harm, anonymity — is taught inside each method rather than as a separate lecture, because it constrains the design rather than decorating it.
- Connects to
- Every study in every context that follows is read through these methods. Paper 2 Section A is examined directly on the class practicals, and the internal assessment asks students to design a proposal using one of these four methods.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Causality and measurement enter here and never leave. Run at least one short practical per method in this phase, so students have their own data to argue about before they meet anybody else’s.
2. Designing and Evaluating Psychological Research
- Teach to this depth
- The evaluative vocabulary that turns a description of a study into an assessment of it. Reliability; internal and external validity with the specific threats to each; generalisability and the sampling that supports or undermines it — random, opportunity, self-selected, purposive and snowball — with the trade-off each involves named rather than implied. Researcher bias and participant bias, including demand characteristics and social desirability. Then the qualitative counterparts taken every bit as seriously as the quantitative ones: credibility, transferability, and reflexivity treated as a method rather than as an apology. Students practise applying two or more of these to an unseen study, which is precisely the form Paper 2 takes. Higher Level carries this further into the data itself, in the topic that follows: an evaluation of reliability or validity that can appeal to a statistic is a stronger evaluation than one that cannot.
- Connects to
- Applies to every study taught for the remainder of the course. It is the single strongest reason for placing research methods at the front of the sequence rather than in Year 2.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Bias and responsibility. Hand students a study they half-know and have them evaluate it cold, before any model answer is supplied — the errors they make are the syllabus.
3. Analysing and Interpreting Psychological Data
- Teach to this depth
- The Higher Level data content taught here, inside the methods phase where it belongs, rather than in the spring of Year 2. Graphical presentation: bar charts, histograms, scatterplots and box-and-whisker plots chosen to suit the data rather than out of habit; frequency tables; and the shapes of distributions, including skew, with what each shape implies about the sample. Descriptive statistics: measures of central tendency and of dispersion, and the reason a standard deviation tells you more than a range. Outliers identified and then interrogated rather than deleted. Then inference: probability and the logic of significance, what a p-value does and does not say, the choice of statistical test given the design and the level of data, and correlation coefficients read for strength and direction — together with the standing temptation to over-read them. Thematic analysis as the qualitative counterpart, taught as a procedure with a rigour of its own rather than as impressionistic summary.
- Connects to
- Extends both methods topics and is then applied to every study for the rest of the course. It is examined in Paper 3, and it is what allows an internal assessment proposal to specify a defensible analysis rather than a vague intention to ‘compare the results’.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Measurement and bias. Analyse the class practical data generated in the previous two topics — the numbers are the students’ own, so the statistics are not abstract.
Phase B — Learning, Thinking and Cognitive Processes
More later topics depend on this phase than on any other. Conditioning underpins the treatment of addiction and depression; schema theory underpins the cognitive model of depression and cultural schemas in memory; social learning theory reappears in obesity, in group behaviour and in identity formation. Teaching cognition and learning early means those later topics can use the machinery instead of pausing to build it.
4. Learning and Decision-Making
- Teach to this depth
- The cognitive and behavioural machinery the rest of the course reuses. Classical and operant conditioning taught with their original evidence and their limits, including reinforcement schedules and the reason extinction matters clinically. Social learning theory through attention, retention, reproduction and motivation, with vicarious reinforcement, and the modelling studies read critically rather than admired. Schema theory as the organising cognitive construct — how schemas form, how they distort encoding and recall, and why they are difficult to test. Dual-process accounts of thinking, with the two systems distinguished by evidence rather than by metaphor. Anchoring and confirmation bias demonstrated on the class before they are explained to the class.
- Connects to
- Conditioning underpins the treatment topic; schema theory underpins Beck’s cognitive model of depression and cultural schemas in memory; social learning theory reappears in obesity, in group behaviour and in identity formation.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Bias and perspective. Anchoring in particular yields a usable class dataset in ten minutes, which then serves as practice material for the evaluative vocabulary just taught.
5. Memory and Cognitive Function
- Teach to this depth
- Memory taught as competing models rather than as a single account. The multi-store model with the evidence for it and the evidence against it; working memory and cognitive load, with the practical consequences for how students themselves study; and an explicit comparison of the models against the same evidence, which is what the syllabus asks for and what candidates find hardest to do. Brain damage and memory: the case-study evidence, and the inferential limits of reasoning from a damaged brain to an intact one. Cultural schemas and reconstructive memory. Learning and spatial memory. The effects of computer gaming on memory as a current and genuinely unsettled literature, where the honest conclusion is that the evidence does not yet point one way. The technology extension returns to these models at the end of the course, where cognitive offloading and media multitasking are assessed against the working memory account taught here.
- Connects to
- Builds directly on schema theory from the previous topic; the case-study limits apply the methods phase under pressure; cultural schemas anticipate the sociocultural work in the group behaviour topic.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Change and measurement — memory is the clearest case in the course of a construct that is hard to operationalise. A serial-position or cognitive-load practical gives students data of their own.
Phase C — Human Growth and Psychological Development
Development is the first sustained use of the biological approach, and the first context in which all three approaches have to be held together. It follows cognition because Piaget and Vygotsky are accounts of cognitive change, and it precedes the social phase because attachment and enculturation are what group behaviour and relationships are later built on.
6. Understanding Developmental Processes
- Teach to this depth
- Development approached from the biological level first: brain maturation across childhood and adolescence, synaptic pruning, and neuroplasticity treated as a lifelong rather than a childhood property, with the evidence for each and the limits of imaging-based inference stated plainly. Then the two great cognitive-developmental accounts taught against each other rather than one after the other: Piaget’s stages, with the conservation and object-permanence evidence and the replications that complicate it; Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, with the zone of proximal development, scaffolding and the role of language. Theory of mind: its emergence, the false-belief paradigm, and what atypical development reveals about it.
- Connects to
- The biological content prepares the genetic and neurotransmitter work in the health phase; Vygotsky’s emphasis on the social prepares enculturation, and theory of mind prepares the social cognition in the relationships topic.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Change and perspective. Piaget against Vygotsky is the course’s cleanest example of two paradigms explaining the same observations differently — ideal for a concept-based response.
7. Development of Identity and Self
- Teach to this depth
- Attachment as the first relationship: Bowlby’s theory with its internal working model, the evidence from separation and deprivation research, and the consequences of disrupted attachment traced carefully and without overstatement. Enculturation and the development of the self, with independent and interdependent self-construals compared using evidence rather than stereotype. Social identity and peer influence in adolescence. Then the developmental effects of childhood poverty and of exposure to war, taught with care and with the methodological problem made explicit, since these are the studies in which design is most constrained by circumstance and ethics.
- Connects to
- Attachment feeds the relationships topic directly; enculturation feeds acculturation and group behaviour; the poverty and conflict research is the hardest test in the course of the sampling and generalisability arguments from the opening phase.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Responsibility and bias. The ethical constraints on studying vulnerable children make this the natural place to revisit research ethics with real stakes attached.
Phase D — Social Interaction and Relationships
The sociocultural approach in full. Group behaviour comes before relationships because social identity and cultural dimensions are the wider framework, and both topics depend on social learning theory from the cognition phase and on enculturation from the development phase. The cultural material taught here is also what makes the cultural explanation of depression intelligible in the final phase.
8. Behaviour in Social Groups
- Teach to this depth
- Social identity theory built properly — categorisation, identification, comparison — and then used to explain in-group favouritism and inter-group discrimination, with the minimal group evidence and its critics. Conformity: the classic demonstrations, the factors that raise and lower it, and the replication record read honestly rather than reverently. Commitment as a compliance technique alongside the other influence strategies. Cultural dimensions as a framework for comparing group behaviour, taught together with the standard objection to treating a national score as an individual trait. Acculturation and its relationship to psychological wellbeing, including the strategies individuals adopt. Social learning explanations of group behaviour.
- Connects to
- Uses social learning theory and schema from the cognition phase and enculturation from the development phase; social identity and cultural dimensions both feed the cultural explanation of depression in the final phase.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Perspective and bias. Cultural dimensions are the best vehicle in the course for teaching the difference between a cultural explanation and a cultural stereotype.
9. Formation and Maintenance of Relationships
- Teach to this depth
- Attraction, formation and maintenance across all three approaches at once. Biological: dopamine and the reward circuitry in romantic attachment, with the correlational and imaging evidence and its limits stated rather than assumed away. Cognitive and social: the matching hypothesis with the studies that support it and the studies that do not; self-disclosure and reciprocity in formation and maintenance. Social exchange theory as an economic account of relationships — costs, rewards, comparison level — evaluated for what it explains and for what it cannot.
- Connects to
- Rests on attachment from the development phase and on social identity from the previous topic; the dopamine content pairs with the neurotransmitter work in the health phase as two applications of the same level of analysis.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Measurement and causality. Operationalising attraction is the sharpest measurement problem students will meet, and it makes an excellent questionnaire or correlational practical.
Phase E — Mental Health and Wellbeing
Placed here because it is the context that uses everything taught so far. Explaining depression requires genetics and neurotransmitters, Beck’s schemas, operant maintenance and cultural variation at once; evaluating treatment requires all of that plus the ability to read a clinical trial. It also sits immediately before the extensions, because each of the three lenses that follow returns to this context first.
10. Understanding Psychological Disorders
- Teach to this depth
- Major depressive disorder explained at three levels at once, which is what makes this a synthesis rather than a topic. Biological: genetic contributions with the twin and family evidence and the concordance figures read properly, neurotransmitter activity and the limits of the monoamine account, and animal models with both their translational value and their ethical cost. Cognitive: Beck’s model, the negative triad, and depressive schemas, drawing directly on the schema theory taught in the cognition phase. Sociocultural: cultural influences on the presentation and reporting of depression, cross-cultural differences in prevalence and diagnosis, operant explanations for the maintenance of depressed behaviour, and the protective role of social support. The topic closes by asking students to weigh the three accounts against each other rather than to list them in turn. The culture extension returns to this topic in Phase F, where the cross-cultural material is taken considerably further — into diagnosis, classification and the question of whether the disorder itself is culturally shaped.
- Connects to
- Draws on schema theory, operant conditioning, cultural dimensions and the whole evaluative apparatus of the methods phase simultaneously; it is the direct prerequisite for the treatment topic.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Causality and perspective. This is the course’s clearest case of three explanations of one phenomenon, and its strongest material for a concept-based extended response.
11. Health-Related Behaviour and Psychological Factors
- Teach to this depth
- Obesity and smoking as health problems with psychological determinants. The prevalence patterns and the cultural differences in both, treated as data requiring explanation rather than as background. Social learning explanations of obesity, applying the modelling framework from the cognition phase to eating behaviour. The cortisol–stress–weight relationship as a biological pathway, with the correlational nature of most of the evidence made explicit and the direction-of-causation problem examined rather than mentioned.
- Connects to
- Applies social learning theory and cultural comparison; the correlational evidence problem is the methods phase under real pressure, and the smoking material sets up the nicotine treatment content that follows immediately.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Causality and measurement. Stress and health behaviour make an ideal correlational practical whose limits students must then state in their own words.
12. Prevention and Psychological Treatment
- Teach to this depth
- Treatment taught as a test of explanation: if the cognitive account of depression is right, cognitive therapy ought to work, and the extent to which it does becomes evidence about the theory. Drug-based treatment of major depressive disorder and of nicotine dependence, with mechanism, efficacy evidence, relapse rates and side-effect profile. Biological reductionism examined as a serious argument with a real cost rather than dismissed as a slogan. Cognitive behavioural therapy for depression and for nicotine addiction, with its behavioural and its cognitive components identified separately, and comparative and combined-treatment evidence used to reach a judgement rather than a summary.
- Connects to
- The closing synthesis of the course: it needs the disorder itself, the cognitive and behavioural theory the therapy is built on, and the evaluative apparatus for reading a clinical trial. Every earlier phase feeds it.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Responsibility and causality. Treatment evidence forces students to handle relapse, attrition and effect size rather than a single headline result.
Phase F — Culture Across the Contexts
The first of the three Higher Level lenses. The guide is explicit that the extensions are not standalone units but further inquiry into the four contexts already studied, and this phase is built that way: one topic per context, in the same order the contexts were originally taught. Culture comes first of the three because the sociocultural groundwork — cultural dimensions, acculturation, enculturation — is already in place, and because the etic and emic distinction it introduces is used by the two lenses that follow.
13. Culture and Psychological Wellbeing
- Teach to this depth
- Culture as an explanatory variable in mental health rather than a caveat appended to it. Cultural influences on the aetiology, expression and reporting of psychological conditions; culture and diagnosis, including the cultural assumptions embedded in the classification systems themselves and the consequences of applying an instrument developed in one population to another; and the similarities and differences in major depressive disorder across cultural settings, with somatic against affective presentation examined through evidence. Whether a disorder is universal, culturally shaped or culturally constructed is put to students as a live question rather than settled for them.
- Connects to
- Revisits the mental health topic through the cultural dimensions and social identity work of the social phase, and applies the validity and sampling arguments from the methods phase to cross-cultural instruments.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Perspective and bias. The strongest available material for the etic and emic distinction that the next topic formalises.
14. Culture and Human Development
- Teach to this depth
- Cultural influences on parenting practices and on what a culture counts as competent development, compared without being ranked. Etic and emic approaches defined precisely and then put to work as a methodological test: which developmental findings survive translation into another cultural setting, and which turn out to have been local all along. The role of culture in identity and self-development, returning to independent and interdependent self-construals with more evidence and more scepticism than the Standard Level treatment has room for.
- Connects to
- Revisits the identity topic; the etic and emic distinction introduced here is used in both culture topics that follow and is the sharpest methodological idea in the whole extension.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Perspective and responsibility. Imposed-etic research is the clearest example in the course of a methodological failure with ethical consequences.
15. Culture and Interpersonal Relationships
- Teach to this depth
- Marriage and partner selection across cultural contexts, with arranged and love-based systems compared on outcome evidence rather than on assumption. Cultural variation in interpersonal communication: directness, high and low context, and the expression of conflict and of affection. Then the question that gives the topic its edge — what the relationship theories taught earlier quietly assume about the culture they were developed in, and how far social exchange theory and the matching hypothesis actually travel.
- Connects to
- Revisits the relationships topic and tests its theories against the etic and emic distinction from the previous topic.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Bias and perspective. The most valuable exercise here is asking which of the earlier theories is culture-bound, and requiring evidence for the answer.
16. Culture, Learning and Cognition
- Teach to this depth
- Cultural influences on learning and on thinking. Cultural schemas and their effect on recall, revisiting the memory topic with new evidence; differences in learning processes and expectations across educational cultures; and bilingualism and cognition, where the claimed executive-function advantage is examined against a replication and publication-bias literature that has not settled it. The honest conclusion is that the effect is smaller and less certain than its popular reputation.
- Connects to
- Revisits the cognition phase and closes the culture lens; the bilingualism dispute applies the data analysis topic directly, since the disagreement is largely a statistical one.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Measurement and bias. Bilingualism is the best case in the course for teaching publication bias with something real at stake.
Phase G — Motivation Across the Contexts
The second lens, again one topic per context. Motivation is placed after culture because several of its claims — praise, mindset, self-report instruments — need both the replication argument from the culture phase and the statistical literacy from Phase A before they can be assessed rather than merely reported.
17. Motivation and Health Behaviour
- Teach to this depth
- Motivational theory applied to changing health behaviour. Fear arousal in smoking cessation campaigns, with the evidence on when fear appeals work and the conditions under which they backfire. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation distinguished and then applied to cessation and relapse. Stage models of behaviour change, and the motivational processes involved in quitting, connected directly to the treatment evidence taught in the health phase.
- Connects to
- Revisits the health and wellbeing context; the relapse evidence connects straight to the pharmacological and cognitive behavioural treatment topic.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Change and causality. Behaviour change over time is the course’s natural home for the change concept.
18. Motivation and Human Development
- Teach to this depth
- Motivation as a developmental variable. The effect of praise, with the distinction between praising ability and praising effort, and the mindset literature read together with its replication record rather than apart from it. Extrinsic motivators and the overjustification effect. How motivational processes shape the development of persistence, self-concept and achievement — and where the evidence is genuinely stronger than the popular account of it, and where it is weaker.
- Connects to
- Revisits the development phase and applies the reinforcement content from the learning topic; the replication discussion uses the data analysis topic.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Causality and responsibility. The gap between the mindset literature and its classroom application is a live lesson in how evidence gets used.
19. Motivation in Social and Work Settings
- Teach to this depth
- Motivation in sport and in the workplace. Locus of control and its relationship to persistence and performance; achievement motivation; goal setting; and the factors that raise or depress employee satisfaction and performance, with the major theories evaluated on their evidence rather than on their plausibility. Group motivational effects, including social loafing, connected back to the group behaviour topic where the social identity framework was built.
- Connects to
- Revisits the social phase; social loafing and group motivation apply social identity theory directly.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Measurement and perspective. Workplace motivation research rests heavily on self-report, which makes it a good test of whether students have internalised the measurement concept.
20. Motivation, Learning and Academic Behaviour
- Teach to this depth
- The relationship between motivation and learning outcomes, with the claim that intrinsic motivation produces better long-term retention treated as an empirical proposition to be tested rather than an encouraging sentiment. Strategies for developing independent and self-regulated learners. Then the measurement question that closes the lens: how motivation is actually assessed, whether the self-report instruments measure what they claim to, and what the alternatives to them are.
- Connects to
- Revisits the cognition phase and closes the motivation lens by turning it back on its own measurement, which is where the data analysis topic becomes directly and obviously useful.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Measurement above all. This is the clearest opportunity in the Higher Level course to make the measurement concept concrete rather than nominal.
Phase H — Technology Across the Contexts
The final lens and the end of the course. Technology is taught last for two reasons: its evidence base is the newest and most contested in the syllabus, so it demands the most developed evaluative apparatus a student will ever have; and it is the lens through which the whole course can be reviewed, since each of its four topics returns to a context taught a year earlier.
21. Technology and Mental Health
- Teach to this depth
- Technology in the delivery, and the disruption, of mental health care. The use of technology in patient care, including app-based and remote provision, with adherence and attrition data taken as seriously as efficacy data. Virtual reality exposure therapy: its mechanism stated in terms of the conditioning principles taught in the learning topic, and its efficacy evidence set against in-vivo exposure. The relationship between technology use and psychological wellbeing, where effect sizes are small, causal direction is contested, and the public account runs well ahead of the evidence.
- Connects to
- Revisits the health and wellbeing context; virtual reality exposure is an application of classical conditioning, and the wellbeing literature is the single best use of the data analysis topic in the course.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Causality and measurement. Screen-time research is the strongest teaching case available for small effects, very large samples, and conclusions that outrun both.
22. Technology and Human Development
- Teach to this depth
- Technology as a developmental context rather than a developmental threat. Its role in self-development and identity formation, including online self-presentation and social comparison. The influence of artificial intelligence on how children learn and relate. Technoference — the interruption of caregiver–child interaction by devices — and its evidence base in attachment and responsiveness research, which is observational and therefore evaluated with the observational methods from Phase A.
- Connects to
- Revisits the development phase; technoference applies attachment theory directly and is best assessed using the observational method taught in the opening phase.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Change and responsibility. A fast-moving evidence base is itself a lesson in provisional knowledge, which is worth saying to students explicitly.
23. Technology and Social Relationships
- Teach to this depth
- Media influences on the formation and maintenance of relationships, including online formation and the effect of mediated communication on self-disclosure. Social media and group behaviour, applying social identity theory to online groups, to polarisation and to norm formation. The role of technology in acculturation, where sustained contact with a heritage culture changes the acculturation strategies available in a way the original models could not have anticipated.
- Connects to
- Revisits the social phase; the acculturation material updates the group behaviour topic and links back to the culture lens taught two phases earlier.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Perspective and change. Online acculturation is a clean example of a theory requiring revision because the world changed, not because the theory was refuted.
24. Technology, Learning and Memory
- Teach to this depth
- The influence of digital technology on learning and on memory. Cognitive offloading and the reported effect of search availability on recall; multitasking, media use and cognitive load, connected explicitly to the working memory model; and the evidence on digital against handwritten note-taking. The literature is treated as genuinely unsettled, and students are required to reach a judgement supported by evidence rather than by their own intuitions about their own study habits.
- Connects to
- Revisits the cognition phase and closes the course. Cognitive load and the memory models taught in Phase B are the direct framework for every claim in it.
- Concepts & practical angle
- Measurement and bias. The final topic asks students to evaluate a contested literature about the tools they are using to study it — which is the most useful last lesson the course can offer.
Time allocation & two-year pacing
The guide recommends 240 teaching hours for Higher Level Psychology, of which 20 are the internal assessment. This framework allocates the remaining 220 to taught content across all 24 topics; below they are set out by chapter and then paced so that teaching is complete by the end of January in Year 2.
How the 220 taught hours fall by chapter
| Syllabus chapter | Allocated here | Share of taught time |
|---|---|---|
| Chapter 5 — Research methods, incl. data analysis (HL) | 38 h | 17% |
| Chapter 4 — Learning, thinking and cognitive processes | 28 h | 13% |
| Chapter 2 — Human growth and psychological development | 26 h | 12% |
| Chapter 3 — Social interaction and relationships | 24 h | 11% |
| Chapter 1 — Mental health and wellbeing | 30 h | 14% |
| Chapter 6 — Culture and human behaviour (HL) | 25 h | 11% |
| Chapter 7 — Motivation and behaviour (HL) | 24 h | 11% |
| Chapter 8 — Technology and psychology (HL) | 25 h | 11% |
| Taught content subtotal | 220 h | 100% |
| Internal assessment (research proposal) | 20 h | — |
| HL course total | 240 h | — |
The guide sets the 240-hour total and the 20 internal assessment hours but does not publish an hour allocation per context or per extension, so the distribution above is this framework’s judgement rather than the IB’s. The three extension lenses take a third of the taught time between them, which is what a second pass over four contexts costs; the methods chapter is the largest single share because it now carries Paper 3.
The two-year pacing plan
Built on roughly four to five teaching hours per week across the two years, with the research proposal woven through the terms rather than bolted on at the end. The cumulative column tracks progress toward the 240-hour total; the gold rows fall outside the teaching budget.
| Period | Focus | Hours | Cumul. |
|---|---|---|---|
| YEAR 1 | |||
| Autumn term | Phase A — Studying Behaviour Scientifically, including data analysis · one short practical per method · open Phase B with learning and decision-making | 56 | 56 |
| Spring term | Finish Phase B with memory · Phase C — Human Growth and Psychological Development · IA: topic selection and method chosen | 44 | 100 |
| Summer term | Phase D — Social Interaction and Relationships · open Phase E with psychological disorders · IA: research proposal first draft | 44 | 144 |
| YEAR 2 (to end January) | |||
| Autumn term | Finish Phase E — health behaviour, prevention and treatment · Phase F — Culture Across the Contexts · Phase G — Motivation Across the Contexts · IA: proposal completed and submitted | 71 | 215 |
| To end of January | Phase H — Technology Across the Contexts, closing the course by revisiting all four contexts · whole-course concept synthesis | 25 | 240 |
| FEBRUARY – APRIL | Dedicated revision: past papers, short-answer and extended-response drills, unseen study evaluation for Paper 2, data-analysis drills for Paper 3, and timed mocks (additional to the 240 teaching hours) | — | — |
| MAY | IB examinations | — | — |
A note on the practicals, the internal assessment and Paper 3. The 20 internal assessment hours are not a separate course: the task is a research proposal built on one of the four methods used in the class practicals, so the practicals in Phase A are already the beginning of it. Paper 3 is handled the same way. There is no separate statistics module in this framework, because the data analysis belongs with the designs that produce the data — taught in Phase A and then applied to every study for the remaining two hundred hours. By the time Year 2 revision arrives, Paper 3 practice is revision of something students have been doing all along.
Revision time (February–April) is deliberately additional to the 240 teaching hours, in line with the subject guide’s reminder that adequate time must be set aside for examination revision.