Welcome to the Internal Assessment (IA) essentials guide for Business Management. The IA is an integral part of the course and is compulsory for both Standard Level (SL) and Higher Level (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 written examinations. The internal assessment should, as far as possible, be woven into normal classroom teaching and not be a separate activity conducted after a course has been taught.

(IBO, 2014).

WORD COUNT

The following are not included in the word count:

• acknowledgments
• contents page
• tables of statistical data
• diagrams or figures
• equations, formulae and calculations
• citations (which, if used, must be in the body of the commentary)
• references (which, if used, must be in the footnotes/endnotes)
• bibliography.

Please note that footnotes/endnotes may be used for references only. Definitions of business management terms and quotations, if used, must be in the body of the work and are included in the word count. Please note that citation is a shorthand method of making a reference in the body of the commentary, which is then linked to the full reference in the bibliography.

If taking IB Business Management HL, you will need to research and report on an issue facing an organization or decision to be made by an organization (or several organisations) max 2000words. The project should be based on a real business organisation and the question you are considering must be a real one facing the organisation.  Internally assessed word must be entirely your own. For the HL IA there is the additional requirement to create a research proposal 500wds and a time line for the research.

The IB Business Management IA is marked out of 25, and the IA is worth 25 per cent of your total Business Management final score. This 25mks is broken down into 3mks/% for your 500wd research proposal and 22mks/% for your 2000wd report.  Every extra mark you are awarded In the IA is an extra mark that you pick up in your final, overall grade. Every point is worth the effort, because every extra point you gain here has every chance of pushing you up and across into a higher grade boundary, changing you final mark from a 6 to a 7.

Nathan Kime | IB Internal Assessment Coordinator | Curriculum Leader - Commerce | Commerce Teacher
Scotch College | 76 Shenton Road, Swanbourne, WA, 6010
Tel: (08) 9383 6865      E: Loreen.Kerrigan@scotch.wa.edu.au

Below is a list of excellent IA HL examples to help give you ideas about the type of topics you could investigate.

The three marked examples below demonstrate the feedback given to less successful Internal Assessments: