The MYP Personal Project criteria assess how effectively you plan a personally meaningful project, apply approaches to learning skills, and reflect on your learning and final product. Under the current framework, there are three equally weighted criteria, each worth up to 8 achievement levels, giving a maximum total of 24.
The criteria are Criterion A: Planning, Criterion B: Applying skills, and Criterion C: Reflecting. Understanding the distinctions between them helps you collect suitable evidence during the project rather than trying to reconstruct your process when writing the report.
The current MYP Personal Project criteria
The Personal Project includes a process, a product or outcome, and a report. According to the IB Personal Project overview, the process covers your research, planning, decisions, challenges, and progress. The product is what you create or achieve, while the report explains and evaluates the project.
Your supervisor assesses the report against published descriptors. The IB then uses external moderation to support consistency between schools. This is criterion-related assessment, so your work is judged against the descriptors rather than ranked against classmates.
| Criterion | Maximum level | Main focus |
|---|---|---|
| A: Planning | 8 | Learning goal, personal interest, product, success criteria, and plan |
| B: Applying skills | 8 | ATL skills used to achieve the learning goal and product |
| C: Reflecting | 8 | Impact on learning and evaluation of the product |
| Total | 24 | Combined achievement across all criteria |
Each criterion has achievement bands of 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, and 7-8. A level of 0 may be awarded when the work does not reach a standard described by the rubric. Teachers use best-fit judgment, meaning one excellent paragraph does not automatically place the whole criterion in the highest band.
Criterion A: Planning
Criterion A asks you to establish a learning goal, explain its personal origin, define the intended product, develop success criteria, and present a detailed plan. These elements should connect logically.
State a learning goal and explain your personal interest
Your learning goal states what you intend to learn, not simply what you plan to make. You must also explain how a genuine personal interest led to that goal.
For example:
My learning goal is to understand the principles of accessible interface design and learn how to apply them when designing a digital application. This developed from my interest in coding and from watching a relative struggle with applications that used small text and confusing navigation.
This is stronger than “I want to make an app” because it identifies new learning and explains its origin. A meaningful personal connection might come from an existing hobby, personal experience, community observation, unanswered question, or skill you want to develop.
Define the product and success criteria
The product or outcome is what you intend to create or achieve. It should be stated separately from the learning goal because learning design principles and producing an app prototype are related but distinct achievements.
Your success criteria are the standards used to evaluate the completed product. Strong criteria are relevant, specific, and testable.
| Weak criterion | Improved criterion |
|---|---|
| The app will look professional. | Every screen will use consistent typography, spacing, and a three-colour palette. |
| Users will like it. | At least six of eight users will rate navigation 4 out of 5 or higher. |
| It will be accessible. | Every screen will include scalable text, sufficient colour contrast, and labelled controls. |
| It will work properly. | Users will complete three specified tasks within two minutes without assistance. |
Create these criteria before finishing the product. Writing them afterwards can lead to standards that merely describe what you happened to produce, weakening your evaluation under Criterion C.
Present a clear, detailed plan
Your plan should show how you will create the product and address all success criteria. A list such as “research, design, create, write report” is too general because it does not establish methods or milestones.
A useful action plan records:
- Specific tasks and milestones
- Target and actual completion dates
- Required resources, software, or people
- The success criterion connected to each task
- Evidence you intend to preserve
- Changes made and reasons for them
Planning does not require perfect prediction. A justified change can demonstrate effective decision-making when you explain what caused it and how the revised plan continued to support your goal.
Criterion B: Applying skills
Criterion B assesses your application of approaches to learning (ATL) skills. ATL areas include communication, collaboration, self-management, research, and thinking skills.
The two strands require you to explain how ATL skills helped you:
- Achieve your learning goal.
- Achieve your product or outcome.
This distinction matters. Research skills might help you understand accessibility guidance, while creative-thinking and communication skills might help you design, test, and revise an app.
A weak response simply states, “I used research skills.” A stronger explanation identifies the action, purpose, result, and supporting evidence:
I applied information-literacy skills by comparing accessibility recommendations from three specialist sources. I checked the authority and publication date of each source before producing a design checklist. This led me to increase the text size and replace two low-contrast colour combinations, as shown in my draft comparisons.
Evidence might include annotated notes, source evaluations, interview questions, feedback forms, testing results, photographs, emails, calendar revisions, or comparisons between drafts. Evidence supports your explanation, but it cannot replace the explanation itself.
Select the skills that genuinely influenced your work. Discussing two or three ATL skills in detail is normally more effective than naming every category superficially. The RevisionDojo Personal Project guide provides further suggestions for organizing process evidence.
Criterion C: Reflecting
Criterion C examines how the project affected you or your learning and how successfully the product met the standards established in Criterion A. It rewards evidence-based judgment rather than an entirely positive account.
Explain the impact on yourself or your learning
Identify how your knowledge, skills, habits, confidence, perspective, or understanding changed. “I learned a lot” is insufficient because it does not show what changed or why that development matters.
A useful reflection follows this sequence:
- What did you know, believe, or do before the project?
- Which experience, problem, feedback, or research caused a change?
- What do you now understand or do differently?
- How might this influence future learning?
For example, user testing might challenge your assumption that an attractive interface is automatically easy to navigate. Explaining how that discovery changed your design decisions demonstrates reflection on learning, not just a description of events.
Evaluate the product against the success criteria
Return to every success criterion and determine whether it was fully met, partly met, or not met. Support each judgment with measurements, testing, feedback, observations, or identifiable product features.
| Success criterion | Evidence | Evaluation |
|---|---|---|
| Six of eight users rate navigation at least 4/5 | Seven users gave ratings of 4 or 5 | Fully met because the result exceeded the target |
| Users finish three tasks within two minutes | Six succeeded; two exceeded the limit | Partly met because one menu remained difficult to locate |
| Visual design is consistent | Comparison of all final screens | Met, although two icons could be labelled more clearly |
Honest limitations do not automatically lower your result. Vague praise and unsupported claims are usually weaker than a balanced evaluation that identifies both achievement and remaining problems.
Common misconceptions about the criteria
Older resources sometimes describe four criteria worth 32 levels: Investigating, Planning, Taking action, and Reflecting. That is the previous framework. Follow the current rubric provided by your school, especially if an online guide includes four criteria or treats Global Context as a current Criterion A strand.
A polished product also does not determine the entire result. The report must demonstrate planning, ATL application, reflection, and evaluation. Conversely, a product with limitations can support thoughtful analysis when those limitations are examined honestly.
The process journal is not the final report. Process documentation preserves evidence, while the report selects and explains the most relevant evidence. Schools may provide specific instructions about report format, appendices, submission procedures, and exhibitions, so confirm these details with your supervisor.
Students still choosing a project can review Personal Project topics and examples. Topic difficulty is not directly rewarded; a feasible idea with measurable criteria is usually more productive than an ambitious idea that cannot be tested or completed.
Final criteria checklist
Before submitting, confirm that your report does the following:
- States a clear learning goal and explains its personal origin
- Defines the intended product separately from the learning goal
- Includes detailed, relevant, and testable success criteria
- Presents a plan addressing every success criterion
- Explains how ATL skills supported both learning and product development
- Connects each ATL example to actions, decisions, results, and evidence
- Explains meaningful changes in your knowledge or skills
- Evaluates every success criterion individually
- Acknowledges partial success and limitations honestly
The Personal Project report structure guide can help arrange this material. You may also examine Personal Project exemplars for evidence organization, while retaining your own ideas, analysis, and authorship.
Conclusion
The current MYP Personal Project criteria are Planning, Applying skills, and Reflecting, each assessed out of 8 for a maximum total of 24. Strong reports maintain a clear connection between personal interest, learning goal, product, success criteria, planning, ATL application, and evidence-based evaluation.
Use the rubric throughout the process, preserve evidence as you work, and discuss uncertainties with your supervisor. After producing your own draft, RevisionDojo's MYP Personal Project Grader can help identify missing explanations or weak criterion alignment before independent revision.
Sources and referenced URLs
- International Baccalaureate: Personal Project overview
- International Baccalaureate: Personal Project assessment brief
- International Baccalaureate: Seven steps to a successful Personal Project
- RevisionDojo MYP Personal Project guide
- RevisionDojo Personal Project topics and examples
- RevisionDojo Personal Project report structure guide
- RevisionDojo Personal Project exemplars
- RevisionDojo MYP Personal Project Grader
