How to find a good IA idea
Read your subject’s IA criteria first, start from a unit you enjoyed, narrow it until one clear question is left, and check you can finish it with your school’s equipment and time. The best idea is the one that gives you something to show for every criterion.
Free guide. Facts checked against public sources, listed at the bottom.
How do I find a good IA idea in any subject?
Four steps, in this order, work for every subject.
- 1
Read what earns the marks
Ask your teacher for your subject’s IA criteria and read them before you choose. A good idea gives you something to show for every criterion.
- 2
Start from a unit you liked
Reread that chapter, then narrow it twice. Plants, then photosynthesis, then how the colour of light changes its rate.
- 3
Look one level past the textbook
See how real people tackle it: published studies, university pages, experiment videos, open source code. Borrow their method and credit it; never borrow their words.
- 4
Check it fits your time and your school
Do you have the equipment, the data, the person to test with, and enough hours? If not, shrink the question now.
How do I pick a Computer Science IA?
In the new IB Computer Science course (first exams 2027), the IA is a computational solution: a program you plan, build, test and evaluate in about 35 hours, with a write-up of at most 2,000 words (code excerpts and diagrams do not count) and a short video. Pick a real problem that needs real techniques but that you can finish well.
A teacher who tracks lab bookings in a spreadsheet, a club with a paper waiting list, a shop that counts stock by hand. You do not have to have a client, but a real person to ask makes testable success criteria much easier to write.
- Make sure it needs real techniques: classes and objects, a data structure you chose for a reason, saving and loading data, validation, searching or sorting.
- Keep it small enough to finish. One problem solved well beats five features half done.
- Skip tutorial copies (a to-do list, a calculator, a quiz) unless your solution does something the tutorial does not.
- Plan your tests at the start: normal, boundary and invalid inputs for each success criterion.
Ask your teacher which languages your school allows.
Building a CS IA? Get the code skills first
The free course goes from your first program to classes, data structures and files, the techniques a strong CS IA uses. We never write, code or edit any part of an IA: the work is yours.
ExamSpine is an independent revision site for the new IB Computer Science course: short lessons with code you run in Python or Java, and exam-style questions marked as you go. Free to start.
How do I pick a Maths IA (the exploration)?
Start from something you already care about, then find the maths in it. Use maths you understand: you do not need anything beyond the syllabus, and a classmate should be able to follow every step. Personal engagement still earns marks, so show it through what you choose and do.
- Growth or decay in real data: a population, a viral video, a cooling drink.
- The path of a jump, a throw or a free kick, from a video.
- The least packaging for a fixed volume.
- The chance of an event: winning a prize, a flood in your town.
- At HL, the volume of a real object from a photo, using fitted curves and integration.
The new maths courses start with exams in 2029. This advice is for students sitting exams before then.
How do I pick a Biology, Chemistry or Physics IA?
Take a practical you have already done as a guide to difficulty, then change what you vary or what you measure. Keep the question simple and the method careful, and check your school has the equipment. Repeating a class practical as it is will score low.
- Run a pilot: a few test trials before the real run, so you can fix the method early.
- In an experiment, aim for a continuous independent variable with at least five values and several repeats of each.
- Plan how you will handle uncertainty, and sketch your graph, before you collect anything.
Up to three of you may collect data together, but each of you needs your own research question and writes your own report. The collaborative sciences project is a separate task, not your IA.
Biology
Enzymes, plants, osmosis and ecology field sampling are reliable places to start. With microorganisms, use only ones your teacher confirms are non-pathogenic, follow your school’s safety rules, and get your method signed off. If your idea involves animals in any way, ask your teacher about the IB’s guidelines on working with animals first.
Chemistry
Rate against temperature, concentration or a catalyst; titrations on real products, like vitamin C in juices; enthalpy changes by calorimetry; cell voltage against concentration; colorimetry if your school has a colorimeter. Get your risk assessment, including disposal, signed off before you start.
Physics
Pendulums and springs past the basics (damping, large angles); projectiles or drag from slow-motion phone video; resistance against temperature or length; light intensity against distance; standing waves. Phone sensors give cheap, clean data. Plan from the start how you will turn your graph into a straight line.
How do I pick a Psychology IA?
In the new course (first exams 2027) the IA is a research proposal: you design a study for a group of people you name, but you do not run it or collect data. Start from a question about behaviour you want answered, then pick the method that fits: an experiment, an interview, an observation, or a survey.
- Read published research on your question first, and build your design on it.
- Be clear about who the study is for, and how you would find participants.
- Think through the ethics before anything else, and say how you would handle each risk.
Older advice about running an experiment on your classmates is out of date. Show your teacher your plan early.
Questions students ask
- Can I use a common IA topic?
- Yes, but it costs you. Markers know common topics well, so mistakes stand out, and it is harder to show the question is yours. If you pick one, change something real about it.
- Will ExamSpine write or check my IA?
- No. Your IA must be your own work. This page helps you choose and plan; the research, code, writing and analysis are yours, and your teacher is the person who gives feedback on drafts.
- How do I know if my idea is good enough?
- Read each criterion and ask whether your idea gives you something to show for it. If one criterion has nothing, change the idea. Then ask your teacher early, before you collect data or write code.
- Should my IA link to what I want to study at university?
- It can help. A topic you can talk about in a personal statement or interview is worth more to you than one you picked only because it looked easy.
Doing TOK too? Build a strong knowledge question.