IB MYP Individuals and Societies: The Four Assessment Criteria in Practice – Revision Notes

The assessment revision notes list the four criteria and their scoring structure. These notes go further, working through what genuinely top-band evidence looks like for each criterion with a worked example, since knowing a criterion’s name is a different skill from producing coursework that satisfies its top achievement-level descriptors.

Criterion A: Knowing and understanding

Top-band evidence develops factual and conceptual knowledge about individuals and societies and applies it accurately to unfamiliar contexts, using discipline-appropriate terminology precisely rather than approximately.

Worked example: Asked to explain why a historical trade route developed where it did, top-band evidence does not just state relevant facts (climate, terrain, resources) – it connects those facts using an appropriate conceptual framework (e.g. supply and demand, or geographic accessibility) to build a reasoned explanation, applying the same conceptual knowledge a student would use to analyse an unfamiliar trade route they had not specifically studied.

Criterion B: Investigating

Top-band evidence develops a systematic research question and process, working both independently and collaboratively. The public subject brief gives only a one-line description of each criterion, so it does not settle which criterion’s strands assess source evaluation; check the strand-level descriptors in your school’s copy of the subject guide. As general good practice, a strong investigation does not accept the first sources found without scrutiny.

Worked example: A weaker investigation into a local environmental issue might use only one or two easily found sources without comment on their reliability. A stronger one poses a clear, specific research question, consults a genuine range of source types (e.g. a government report, a news article, a firsthand community account), and explicitly evaluates each source’s reliability and relevance to the specific research question before drawing conclusions from them.

Criterion C: Communicating

Top-band evidence organises, documents and communicates learning clearly using a format and structure appropriate to the task and discipline, correctly referencing sources and using subject-specific terminology accurately throughout.

Worked example: Two students research the same historical event. One presents a chronological list of facts with no analytical structure and no source referencing. The other structures the response around a clear argument, integrates evidence from named, properly referenced sources at the points that support each part of the argument, and uses period-appropriate historical terminology consistently – only the second demonstrates top-band communication, since the criterion assesses how the learning is organised and documented, not simply whether the underlying facts are accurate.

Criterion D: Thinking critically

Top-band evidence uses critical-thinking skills to analyse and evaluate the investigation’s own process and findings, considering different perspectives, and drawing well-substantiated conclusions rather than accepting a single source’s account or a single perspective as the whole picture.

Worked example: Asked to evaluate the causes of a historical event, top-band Criterion D evidence explicitly considers more than one plausible perspective or interpretation (e.g. how the event is represented differently by two different historical accounts), evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of each, and reaches a substantiated conclusion about which interpretation the available evidence best supports, rather than presenting one interpretation as simply correct without comparison.

Connecting the four criteria to a single coursework unit

A well-designed unit – for example, a local-issue investigation combining history and geography – naturally generates evidence for all four criteria in one connected piece of work: the conceptual knowledge needed to frame the issue (Criterion A), the process of researching it (Criterion B), the structured, properly referenced write-up of findings (Criterion C), and a final critical evaluation weighing different perspectives on the issue (Criterion D). Revising each criterion as an entirely separate skill, disconnected from how a real investigation actually unfolds, risks missing how naturally the four build on each other within a single piece of coursework – strong Criterion D evaluation, for instance, is only possible once the Criterion B research has already gathered more than one perspective to weigh.

Why these four criteria reward disciplinary variety, not a single fixed method

Because “individuals and societies” spans multiple disciplines (history, geography, economics, and others depending on how a school structures the course), the four criteria are deliberately written broadly enough to apply across all of them – a genuinely investigative geography fieldwork task and a genuinely investigative historical source-evaluation task can both generate strong Criterion B evidence despite using very different specific methods, provided each follows a systematic research question and process.

Self-test

1. What must top-band Criterion A evidence demonstrate beyond stating accurate facts?
2. Why is using only one or two unevaluated sources a weakness in an investigation?
3. What distinguishes top-band Criterion C communication from an accurate but unstructured list of facts?
4. What must top-band Criterion D evidence include beyond a single interpretation presented as correct?
5. Why can two very different disciplinary tasks (e.g. geography fieldwork and historical source evaluation) both generate strong Criterion B evidence?

Answers: 1. Applying that factual and conceptual knowledge accurately to explain or analyse an unfamiliar context, using discipline-appropriate terminology precisely. 2. Because a strong investigation evaluates the reliability and relevance of a genuine range of source types, not simply citing whatever sources were easiest to find (general good practice; check your school’s copy of the subject guide for which criterion strand assesses it). 3. A clear, appropriate structure with properly referenced sources and consistent, accurate use of subject-specific terminology, rather than a chronological or unstructured presentation of facts. 4. Explicit consideration of more than one perspective or interpretation, with an evaluation of their relative strengths and weaknesses leading to a substantiated conclusion. 5. Because the criterion rewards a systematic research question and process, which is common across disciplines, even though the specific methods and content each discipline uses differ substantially.

Official syllabus

International Baccalaureate Organization, Middle Years Programme Subject Brief – Individuals and Societies, from 2014, (c) 2021 – the same source already cited by the full syllabus guide, which first reproduced the four criteria’s names and focus areas from it.