A step-by-step writing frame for the IBDP Sports, Exercise and Health Science Internal Assessment. Each section pairs a place to write with the rubric, worked examples, and the traps that cost students marks — built around sound human-participant design, a testable hypothesis, and statistical analysis.
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📄 Official IB subject brief (ibo.org ↗) — your teacher or IB coordinator can share the full subject guide.
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A strong IB Sports, Exercise and Health Science Internal Assessment starts with a focused research question that manipulates one exercise or physiological variable in human participants and measures a physiological response such as recovery heart rate, blood pressure or reaction time. From there you state a testable hypothesis (H₀ and H₁), sample and standardise your participants, screen them with a PAR-Q and take informed consent, and write a reproducible method. You then process the data as mean ± standard deviation, plot error bars and run an appropriate statistical test, and judge the conclusion against the underlying physiology and referenced secondary data. Free to start; exports to DOCX and PDF.
The SEHS IA is assessed on the four group 4 criteria, each worth 6 marks for a total of 24: Research design (a focused, physiologically grounded question with justified variables and well-sampled participants), Data analysis (clear processing with standard deviation, error bars and a valid statistical test), Conclusion (answered against the analysis and accepted physiology), and Evaluation (realistic strengths, weaknesses and improvements). Personal engagement is no longer separately assessed.
Because SEHS investigations use human participants, examiners expect genuine ethical handling. Every participant should complete a PAR-Q health-screening questionnaire before testing, with anyone reporting a cardiac, dizziness or joint concern excluded. Obtain written informed consent (and parental consent for under-18s), guarantee the right to withdraw, anonymise data by participant code, and standardise participants on age, fitness, warm-up and prior caffeine or food.
The full Research Design section is free to use — sign in only to save your draft across devices and unlock the Data, Conclusion and Evaluation sections. Every section is written by experienced IB examiners, with worked examples and the traps that cost real students marks.
A good SEHS research question is focused and physiologically grounded: it names the participant group, the exercise variable you manipulate (the independent variable, with its range and units) and the physiological response you measure (the dependent variable, with the method and units). For example, “How does the stepping rate (20–32 steps·min⁻¹ on a 30 cm step) affect the recovery heart rate of 16–18-year-old participants?” is manipulable, measurable and repeatable — unlike a vague topic such as “How does exercise affect heart rate?”.
Working with human participants, you must obtain written informed consent after explaining the procedure, risks and purpose, plus parental or guardian consent for participants under 18. Screen every participant with a PAR-Q before testing and exclude anyone flagged. Tell participants they may withdraw at any time and have their data deleted, anonymise results by code (P1, P2 …), and follow the IB ethical guidelines for the use of human participants with your supervisor’s approval.
Match the test to your data and hypothesis. Use a t-test to compare two groups (paired if the same participants are tested under both conditions); a one-way ANOVA (repeated-measures for a within-participant design) to compare three or more levels of the independent variable; a Pearson correlation for the strength of a linear relationship between two continuous variables; and a chi-square for categorical frequency data. State your null hypothesis and α = 0.05, report the test statistic and p-value, and reject H₀ if p < 0.05.
Yes — the full Research Design section is free to use, and you can export your work to both DOCX (Word) and PDF at any time. Signing in lets you save your draft in the cloud across devices and unlock the paid Data analysis, Conclusion and Evaluation sections. The guidance throughout is written by experienced IB examiners.