Yes—it is okay to use another student’s Internal Assessment (IA) as inspiration, but only if you do so carefully and ethically. Looking at exemplars can help you understand what good looks like. Copying ideas, questions, or designs does not.
The International Baccalaureate is very clear on this point: every IA must represent independent work, even when students are studying the same subject or phenomenon.
What Counts as Acceptable vs. Unacceptable Use
Acceptable Use of Other IAs
You may look at other IAs to:
- Understand structure (introduction, method, analysis, conclusion)
- See how data is presented in tables, graphs, or diagrams
- Learn how students discuss uncertainties, limitations, and evaluation
- Observe how research questions are phrased in general terms
In other words, you can learn how an IA is written, not what is written.
Unacceptable Use of Other IAs
You cross into academic misconduct if you:
- Use the same or nearly identical research question
- Replicate another student’s methodology with only minor changes
- Reuse data, results, graphs, or conclusions
- Paraphrase or copy ideas without clear acknowledgment
Changing one variable or wording slightly is not enough. If an examiner can reasonably say “this is essentially the same investigation,” that is a problem.
