The new psychology curriculum guide will be published on MyIB on Tuesday 4th February. It is for teaching from August/September 2025, and there are a lot of changes to the approach to learning, though not so many to the content. You will be glad to learn, however, that the rote learning of studies is very much reduced as the focus shifts to understanding and making curriculum links through the six main concepts.

The six concepts

An example of how they may be used within a context is:

Human relationships

Bias – in the study of human relationships, the research method used is often questionnaires or interviews. How might these methods lead to bias in the findings?

Causality – how is it possible to identify causality within complex group behaviour?

Change – what is the role of intrinsic motivation in the formation of interpersonal relationships?

Measurement – discuss how triangulation could be used in the study of factors influencing interpersonal relationships.

Perspective – evaluate a reductionist approach in the study of interpersonal relationships.

Responsibility – discuss how ethical considerations may affect findings in the study of group behaviours.

These are questions that we already ask in the current psychology curriculum. The new curriculum is now making them an integral and explicit part of learning.