IB Diploma Program Internal Assessments
In the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IBDP) generally, two methods are used for the student's evaluation "Internal Assessment Method" and "External Assessment Method". The External evaluation method is a common term that comes to mind whenever someone remark about the IB program so often the Internal assessment confuses those who are just intending to start the IB Diploma program or have just overheard about it.
But that's totally fine if you are new to IB or do not hold bits of knowledge of the IB terms and acronyms. Because this blog is an ideal guide to clear all your confusion.
What is an Internal Assessment?
An Internal Assessment is a kind of evaluation that is marked or assessed by the subject teacher internally based on some fixed criteria and subject associated projects or tasks. Internal assessment is a crucial part of the IB diploma program in which students' performance is judged on the basics of reports, verbal presentations, essays, and portfolios to check student's abilities and expertise in a particular subject, and then the results of the assessment are forwarded to IB moderators for further modulation to assure whether IB rules are satisfied or not.
Internal assessment varies from subject to subject depending upon the subject criteria for example:
- Oral Presentation for the languages course
- Fieldwork for Geography
- Laboratory or Project work for sciences course
- Commentaries or Essays for Economics
- Theatre or artistic performances for Arts
What is the weightage of the Internal Assessment?
Generally, the standard weightage of Internal Assessment is 20% to 30% for sciences but can weigh 50% for other courses such as design subjects.
Why Internal Assessments matter?
Internal Assessments are the mandatory part of the IB program and your internal grading entirely depends upon your subject teacher. So, it is suggested to students to catch their teacher's direction and advice if they want to obtain an excellent grade in their internals.
How would you know whether you are fairly evaluated?
IB assures students that their hard work is assessed justly without any favoritism or unfairness. Therefore, they have maintained the system of moderation in which the external moderator rechecks some of the student's assignments checked by the class teacher to view if the IB evaluation standards are satisfied or whether the student is awarded the grade totally on merit. In case, if any partiality is seen then moderators have the liberty to alter the students' score.
