Looking for ready-to-use resources that will save you hours of preparation time? Our extensive collection of FREE worksheets covers every Content, Context, and Concept in the course and we’ve even included the Research Methods and Data Analysis and Interpretation topics.
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Each worksheet is written to provide complete coverage of its topic. Students will find clear definitions, detailed explanations, and thoughtful discussions that build genuine understanding. But we don’t stop at theory, every worksheet includes engaging questions that reinforce learning and encourage critical thinking.
Flexibility for your teaching
Here’s the game-changer: these worksheets are provided as Word documents, not PDFs. This means you can download them and customize them to perfectly suit your teaching style, your students’ needs, and your specific classroom situations. Edit questions, add examples relevant to your students’ experiences, or adjust the difficulty level: the choice is yours. But they’re ready to use without any edits.
Comprehensive coverage
With one (and often two) worksheets available for every topic, you’ll have everything you need to support student learning throughout the course. From Biological to Sociocultural, from Research Design to Statistical Analysis… it’s all here.
Download your FREE worksheets today and spend less time creating materials and more time enjoying yourteaching.
Here’s a question that’s been bouncing around: ‘What do we mean when we say psychology is conceptual?’
It sounds like academic jargon, I know. But stick with me, because this idea gets right to the heart of what makes psychology such a fascinating and essentially human field.
What ‘conceptual’ means
When we say psychology is conceptual, we’re pointing to something fundamental: the things psychologists study aren’t sitting out there in nature waiting to be discovered, like gold deposits or new species of beetle.
Think about it. ‘Memory’, ‘aggression’, ‘intelligence’, ‘attachment’, ‘depression’… these are all human-created concepts. We invented them. We drew the boundaries. We decided what counts as ‘aggression’ versus ‘assertiveness’, where ‘normal anxiety’ ends and ‘anxiety disorder’ begins, and what behaviors signal ‘secure attachment’.
These aren’t discoveries of pre-existing, naturally occuring things. They’re useful ways we’ve carved up the messy, continuous reality of human behavior.
Concepts change with time and culture
Here’s where it gets interesting. If psychological concepts were natural features, fixed features of reality, they’d be universal and unchanging. And of course, they’re not.
The concept of ADHD didn’t exist 100 years ago. ‘Hysteria’ was once a major diagnostic category; now it’s vanished from our textbooks. Different cultures conceptualize mental states in different ways. Some languages don’t even have a word that maps onto our concept of ‘depression’.
Our psychological concepts are also theory-laden. When we talk about ‘working memory’, we’re not just describing something neutral, we’re buying into a particular model of how cognition works. When Freudians spoke of ‘ego defence mechanisms’, they were smuggling in a whole theoretical framework.
So what’s the alternative?
If psychology is conceptual, what would it look like if it weren’t?
The alternative would be studying human behavior and experience as purely physical or biological phenomena. We’d focus only on directly measurable, observer-independent entities: neurons firing, neurotransmitter concentrations, brain structures, hormone levels, reaction times, genetic markers…
This would be neuroscience or physiology: concrete, physical, and measurable.
The problem is…
The problem is that most of what makes us human: love, identity, grief, creativity, the search for meaning…, these can’t be fully captured by purely physical descriptions.
You could give me a complete neural map of everything happening in someone’s brain during grief. Every synapse, every chemical cascade, every pattern of activation. And yet that description wouldn’t capture what grief is as a human experience. It wouldn’t tell you what it means to lose someone you love.
Living in the tension
This is why psychology occupies such uncomfortable territory. It sits between the natural sciences, which study observer-independent physical phenomena, and the human sciences, which study meaning-laden, conceptual phenomena.
Psychology is both at once. It studies real biological processes and culturally-situated concepts. It measures objective behaviors and interprets subjective meanings. It discovers and constructs.
This creates unique methodological and philosophical challenges. But it’s also what makes psychology interesting. We’re not just measuring things; we’re constantly negotiating what those things even are.
And that’s not a weakness. It’s the nature of studying something as complex, dynamic, and meaning-soaked as human experience.
What do you think? Does recognizing psychology as conceptual make it less scientific or does it make it more honest about what science of the human mind can actually be?
An often-neglected aspect of teaching IBDP Psychology helping students develop fluency with subject-specific terminology. Words like validity, reliability, etiology, synaptic gap, neurotransmitter, and operant conditioning aren’t just vocabulary, they’re the precise tools we use to communicate complex ideas about behavior.
The assessment criteria make this explicit: ‘There is accurate and precise use of psychological terminology’ and ‘Psychological terminology relevant to the research methods is used effectively’. These aren’t minor criteria, they directly affect student grades in all assessment components. When students write about ‘proof’ instead of evidence, or ‘sadness’ instead of depression, they’re not just being imprecise; they’re failing to demonstrate the precise and accurate vocabulary that examiners expect.
Teaching terminology effectively means more than providing definitions. Students must understand when and how to use these terms. Does this theory apply to all cultures or is it ‘culture-bound’? Is this a hormone or a neurotransmitter? Understanding these distinctions demonstrates genuine psychological literacy, not just memorization.
The payoff extends beyond exam scores. Students who master the subject’s vocabulary think more precisely about behavior, communicate more effectively in their internal assessment and extended essays, and develop the academic foundation necessary for university level psychology study.
IB Diploma Psychology – The Glossary of Psychology Vocabulary (by Tom Coster) is an essential companion for every IB Diploma Psychology student, providing a clear and concise collection of key terms and concepts tailored to the IB Psychology syllabus.
Designed to support your journey into the field, this glossary will enhance your understanding of human thought, emotion, and behavior, while helping you master the specialized vocabulary required for academic success and real-world application.
Thematic analysis is a method for identifying, analysing, and reporting patterns (or themes) within qualitative data, often interview transcripts or text-based data.
Braun and Clarke’s widely used six-phase approach includes: (1) familiarising yourself with the data, (2) generating initial codes, (3) searching for themes, (4) reviewing themes, (5) defining and naming themes, and (6) producing the final report.
Braun and Clarke’s approach encourages reflexivity, transparency, and detailed interpretation of meaning. Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke are psychologists and qualitative research experts who developed this structured approach to thematic analysis. Braun is a professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and Clarke is based at the University of the West of England, Bristol. Their paper, Using thematic analysis in psychology (2006) helped establish thematic analysis as a distinct and rigorous method. Since then, they have continued to publish widely on qualitative methods, advocating for reflexive and transparent practices in thematic analysis.
To read more about how to conduct a thematic analysis, and to see a worked example, download the FREE document below.
We’ve created the complete PowerPoint teaching bundle to perfectly complement Tom Coster’s IB Diploma Psychology – The Textbook. Whether you’re a new teacher navigating the updated syllabus (first exams in 2027) or an experienced educator looking to save precious prep time, this resource is built with you in mind.
Our DP Psychology Powerpoint bundle will save teachers HOURS of time
What’s in the box? This all-in-one package includes 16 fully editable .pptx files (Apple’s Keynote will open and read them), carefully designed to align with every part of the IB Psychology syllabus:
The Three Approaches Biological, Cognitive, Sociocultural
Research Methodology
Real-World Contexts Health & Well-being, Human Development, Human Relationships, Cognition & Learning
Student Success Tools Internal Assessment, The Examination, How to do well in IBDP Psychology
Why teachers love the package: Complete coverage – Every aspect of the syllabus is ready to teach. Engaging visuals – Slides are clean, appealing, and logically structured. Time-saving – Spend less time preparing and more time teaching. Fully customizable – Tailor each presentation to your own teaching style and your students’ needs. Exam-ready focus – Dedicated materials for IA and exam prep ensure your students are set up for success.
Ready to use from day one: Open, display, teach—it’s that simple. Or, if you prefer, edit and adapt the slides to make them your own. Either way, you’ll have a professional, syllabus-aligned resource library at your fingertips.
Give your students the best chance to succeed in IB Psychology. With this bundle, you’re not just getting PowerPoints—you’re getting confidence, clarity, and consistency in your teaching.
One of the quiet revolutions in teaching IB Psychology is this: our students no longer need to memorise outlines of 200 or more studies, each with two strengths and two limitations. That’s worth celebrating. It makes our subject lighter, more engaging, and far more relevant. Students can now focus on developing critical thinking, connecting concepts, and applying their knowledge rather than playing flashcard games with endless lists of studies.
But let’s not forget: research is the scientific foundation of psychology.
Would you teach ethics in psychology without telling your students about Little Albert and the white rat, Zimbardo’s appalling Stanford Prison Study, or Milgram’s not-so-appalling obedience experiments? Of course not. These are the stories that not only illustrate concepts but also bring to life the ethical debates that shape our subject.
Would we introduce social identity theory without Sherif’s Robbers Cave study? Could we possibly explain observational learning without Albert Bandura’s endlessly punched Bobo doll? And when we turn to methods, what better way to anchor quasi-experiments and neuroplasticity than Eleanor Maguire’s London taxi drivers, or to illuminate the case study method than Henri Molaison, whose memory loss is legendary?
The point is simple: research gives psychology its credibility.
Yes, assessment criteria don’t explicitly require studies by name. Students aren’t graded on whether they remember that it was 22 boys in Sherif’s camp or 72 children in Bandura’s playroom. But to teach any of the IB Psychology concepts with integrity, we must draw upon the research that produced them. Without robust studies and their conclusions, our discipline risks floating away into abstraction, detached from the science that grounds it.
So let’s celebrate freedom from rote memorisation, but let’s also celebrate the research itself. Studies are not an add-on; they are the very evidence that makes psychology worth studying.
One of the most noticeable shifts in the new course is the emphasis in assessment on examples rather than memorised research studies. In Paper 1, Section A, those short 10-minute questions are marked against just two descriptors:
The response demonstrates detailed knowledge relevant to the question.
The example is relevant and explained.
Note that word — example— not research study. In fact, the only time assessment criteria explicitly require reference to a research study is when it’s mentioned in the question itself (Paper 2, Section B).
Over the years, I’ve enjoyed teaching the finer details of Henri Molaison (Scoville & Milner), Baby Albert (Watson & Rayner), Milgram, Odden & Rochat, Caspi et al… These classic studies are fascinating and still worth knowing, but the new Guide is clear: it’s example, not studies.
Research will always be a valid and robust part of a Psychology course.
Students often memorise outlines of these studies and then regurgitate them in the exam. That’s not the same as demonstrating real knowledge and understanding.
This isn’t to say we should stop teaching research studies — I certainly won’t. I’ll continue to speak lovingly of the Dunedin Study, the HM case, and several others. But students and I won’t be getting anxious about memorising the number of participants in the HM case study (eh hem, that’s a little psychology research joke there), or the nationality of Dunedin Study participants, or the socioeconomic status of Kahneman and Tversky’s samples. We can still use research studies — and we should — but students won’t have to memorise the details.
The real focus is transfer of knowledge. Taking Social Identity Theory and applying it to a bullying case in a school or an international conflict. Using Social Learning Theory to describe how a public health campaign could reduce teenage alcohol consumption. Even if the example is fictional, applying the theory to a fresh, unseen situation shows depth of understanding far better than rattling off participant numbers and procedure details.
This shift isn’t about discarding research — it’s about using it. The research is the foundation. But in assessment, it’s the bridge from theory to application that earns top marks. And that’s a far better reflection of what it means to understand psychology.
Discuss the role of Social Identity Theory in explaining a conflict.
Whether you’re in your very first year of teaching IBDP Psychology or your thirtieth, in some ways it doesn’t matter. You’re standing in front of a new set of students. Fresh faces, fresh questions, and—if we’re honest—fresh challenges.
Same but different.
Maybe you’re teaching in the same school you once sat in as a student yourself, or maybe you’re on the other side of the globe—Morocco, Mauritius, Oman, Albania. Again, that’s not really the point. Because teaching, at its heart, is about guiding and supporting your students, wherever you happen to be.
Yes, I know… the year will kick off with a few staff meetings. Some will be useful. Others… well, let’s just say “less so.” If you find yourself in one of those, you could quietly plan a lesson or even play a quick game of chess from the back row. (Not that I’m encouraging mischief, of course.)
Your first lessons aren’t about ploughing through the syllabus—they’re about setting the tone. Letting students (and their parents) know they’re in safe, well-prepared hands.
You might kick off with an introduction to the experimental method—perhaps demonstrating the Stroop Effect to show how something as simple as reading a word can become surprisingly tricky when colour and meaning clash.
Or you might spark a discussion about human behaviour:
Why are some people passionately in favour of immigration to the UK, while others are equally passionately opposed?
Why do some students show up every single day, while others are unfazed by missing lessons?
Why are some people shy while others brim with confidence?
Or perhaps you want to open with ethical considerations—just a quick, engaging chat about Zimbardo’s prison study or Watson and Rayner’s famous “Little Albert” experiment. You could even take your students into the playground to observe younger children for prosocial behaviours—psychology in action from day one.
Whatever you choose, choose something that excites you. That enthusiasm is contagious.
And, you know, take very good care of yourself.
So here’s to the start of your year—new students, new questions, new discoveries. Wherever you are in the world, whatever your teaching style, we’re wishing you all the very best.
If you’re teaching the new IBDP Psychology syllabus (first exams in 2027, first lessons next week!!!), you already know how much planning, organising, and resourcing it takes to cover everything—concepts, content, contexts, the internal assessment, and exam preparation. That’s why this complete PowerPoint bundle has been created: to give you a ready-made, fully editable set of presentations that match the new Subject Guide and Tom Coster’s IB Diploma Psychology – The Textbook perfectly.
This isn’t just a slide deck or two—it’s the WHOLE COURSE in one place. Sixteen separate presentations walk you and your students through every key concept (Bias, Causality, Change, Measurement, Perspective, Responsibility), every content area (the biological, cognitive, and sociocultural approaches, plus research methodology), and every context (Health & well-being, Human development, Human relationships, Cognition & learning). You’ll also find dedicated presentations for the Internal Assessment and for exam strategies, so you can guide students from their first class right through to their final paper.
Don’t even try to do everything
Because they’re fully editable, you can add, remove, and adapt slides to fit your own teaching style or the particular needs of your students. Want more emphasis on a tricky theory? Less on a topic your class already knows? You’re in control. The presentations are ready to use straight away—but they can be as flexible as you need them to be.
To get a feel for the style and structure, there’s a free sample presentation you can download and try in your next lesson. And the full bundle? Just $50 for hundreds of hours of preparation already done for you—available as an instant download, no delivery time, no waiting.
In short, this is about saving your time, reducing your workload, and giving your students consistent, high-quality resources from day one.
A new course doesn’t mean you have to spend hundreds of hours of your own time preparing new teaching materials. Explore our whole site and read about all of the materials we have available.
As DP Coordinators and teachers pore over this year’s IB Diploma results, now is the time to think not just about content delivery, but on how your students are learning. The key to improving your school’s performance probably isn’t more revision sessions, tougher mock exam marking, greater intensity with internal assessments or even more teacher training…, the key to success in school is much more likely to be a shift in student mindset, habits, and engagement.
IB Diploma Psychology – Success at high school or college, written by a teacher with 30+ years of experience, offers exactly that: a practical, common-sense guide to helping students become more disciplined, proactive, and resilient—qualities that consistently lead to stronger academic outcomes in school and beyond.
Unlike quick-fix test strategies, this book provides a blueprint for long-term success: attending every class, managing time effectively, building positive relationships with teachers, and understanding how learning actually works. It’s simple, clear, and designed to be implemented now—not in theory, but in everyday student life. This book is practical – and it’s written for and to your students.
If you’re serious about lifting your students’ IB Diploma results in 2026 and beyond, make this book part of your school’s toolkit. It may be the most powerful change you make this year.
Tom Coster - Psychology 