IB World Religions 8.1.1. What the Investigative Study Is: Requirements at a Glance Notes

8.1.1. What the Investigative Study Is: Requirements at a Glance

What the study is

1. The investigative study is the internal assessment for World Religions. It is an investigation of an aspect of the religious experience, practice or belief of a group, of individual adherents, or of both.
2. The word aspect does the important work. The study examines one part of religious life closely rather than surveying a whole religion or telling its history.
3. The guide calls it an academic exercise requiring preliminary research. That phrase rules out a personal reflection, a diary of a visit, or an opinion piece about religion.
4. It is compulsory for every student on the course. There is no alternative task and no option to substitute extra examination work.
5. About twenty hours of teaching time are allocated to it, and the guide expects it to be woven through the course rather than bolted on at the end.
6. The guide lists it as Part 3 of the course. It sits alongside Part 1, the introduction to nine religions, and Part 2, the two in-depth studies.
7. The work is marked by the teacher and then moderated by the IB. The final mark has to be defensible against the published criteria rather than against a class standard.

Any religion may be chosen

1. The choice of religion is open. The guide states that any religion may be the focus, and the study is not restricted to the nine religions taught in the course.
2. That includes traditions never met in class. Indigenous religions, new religious movements and smaller communities are all legitimate subjects.
3. It also includes a single group inside a large religion. A congregation, an order, a movement or a family may be the unit studied.
4. The study is individual work. Investigation and analysis must be the student's own, even where a class visit or a visiting speaker supplied part of the material.
5. The openness is deliberate. Investigating a tradition not covered in class tests whether the methods of the course travel beyond the syllabus.
6. One piece of work cannot serve two purposes. The same study may not be submitted for both the investigative study and the extended essay.
7. The choice is made with the teacher, who approves topics and advises on practical arrangements. Deciding what to investigate is treated at length in the next article.

Weight, length and time

1. The investigative study is worth 25 per cent of the final assessment. Paper 1 carries 30 per cent and Paper 2 carries 45 per cent, so this single piece outweighs a third of the examination load.
2. It is marked out of 30. Those marks are divided across five criteria, which are listed later in this article.
3. The written analysis runs to 1,500 to 1,800 words. The upper figure is a maximum rather than a target.
4. Assessment stops at 1,800 words. Anything beyond that point is not read, and the over-length itself is also penalised under criterion E.
5. Work that falls significantly short is likely to score low. There is no penalty clause for brevity, but a thin analysis cannot demonstrate what the criteria ask for.
6. Titles, citations, references and appendices are excluded from the count. A coversheet carries the title and the declared word count.
7. The declared count is checked at moderation. It is read against the analysis rather than taken on trust.

Fieldwork at the centre

1. The study is expected to rest on the student's own encounter with the religion. The guide lists the usual forms it takes.
2. Those forms are a visit to a sacred place, building or museum, a study of artifacts, attendance at worship, one or more interviews with adherents, or a study drawing on a range of sources.
3. Preliminary research comes first. The point is that a student arrives at a place of worship or an interview already knowing what the tradition teaches, so that observation can be informed rather than blank.
4. A focused research question directs the whole investigation. It must be narrow enough that 1,800 words can answer it with evidence.
5. Group visits and visiting speakers may be used, but only inside a larger individual study. They cannot supply the substance of the investigation on their own.
6. The source-based study is the one route that need not involve a visit. Even then the sources have to be analysed rather than summarised.
7. Choosing and running a method well is the subject of a later article. What matters here is that some first-hand engagement is expected in almost every case.

The five compulsory headings

1. The written analysis must use five headings, and they are compulsory rather than recommended. They appear in a fixed order.
2. They are Rationale and preliminary research, Plan for study, Summary of significant findings, Critical reflection and evaluation, and References and compliance with format.
3. The headings match the assessment criteria one to one. A moderator reading the analysis can therefore find the evidence for each criterion in a known place.
4. References must be comprehensive and reflect wide preliminary reading. Any consistent referencing system is acceptable, so long as it is used consistently throughout.
5. Appendices carry material that supports the study without belonging in the analysis, such as a list of interview questions.
6. Nothing in the format is optional. A study written as continuous prose without the headings loses marks under criterion E however strong its content.

Criteria A to E

1. Criterion A, rationale and preliminary research, carries 8 marks. It rewards a clear rationale, a focus formulated as a question, a justified range of sources and evidence that has actually been analysed.
2. Criterion B, plan for study, carries 3 marks. It looks for a clearly stated and narrowly focused research question together with a scope and plan that match it.
3. Criterion C, summary of significant findings, carries 6 marks. Findings from observation, interview or participation must be outlined and then explained against the research question.
4. Criterion D, critical reflection and evaluation, carries 10 marks. It is the largest single criterion and the one that separates strong studies from competent ones.
5. Criterion E, references and compliance with format, carries 3 marks. One mark comes from staying within 1,800 words, and the rest from consistent referencing and the five-heading format.
6. Each criterion has its own level descriptors. A mark is given for the level the work matches most closely rather than for meeting every phrase in a descriptor.
7. The distribution is worth reading as advice. Nearly two thirds of the marks sit in criterion A and criterion D, which reward research and reflection rather than description of what was seen.