Why the IB IA matters: a story (and how IA Studio helps)

By the Stadira teaching team · The Study Desk · Updated October 2026

Chapter 1 · 9:47 pm

A topic due on Friday, and a blank page

Lerato’s laptop glowed on the kitchen table. Her Maths teacher wanted three candidate IA topics by Friday. She typed the first thing that felt important enough: “Climate change in Africa.” Then she stared at it for twenty minutes.

If you are in DP1 or DP2, you probably know this feeling. The IA (internal assessment) is the one piece of IB work where nobody hands you the question. You have to invent it, plan it, carry it out and write it up, while six subjects, the Extended Essay, TOK and CAS all keep moving.

Lerato’s topic was not a bad interest. It was a bad size. “Climate change in Africa” is a library, not an investigation. Nobody can answer it in 12 to 20 pages, and an examiner would see that in the first paragraph.

By the way: if your topic list looks like Lerato’s, the Maths IA Studio opens with a free “Start here” lesson and a find-my-topic quiz. It asks what you enjoy and suggests topics you can actually finish. Every other studio has one too.

Chapter 2 · Why does the IB even do this?

The only exam you sit at your own desk

She sent a voice note to her cousin Tumi, who finished the Diploma two years ago. “Why do they make us do IAs? Can’t they just test us in May?”

Tumi replied with one line: “Because in May they find out what you remember. In the IA they find out what you can do.”

That is the heart of it. A written exam checks knowledge under time pressure. The IA checks something exams cannot: whether you can behave like a mathematician, a scientist, a historian or an economist. Choose a real question, gather evidence, use the subject’s tools properly, and judge the limits of your own work.

And here is what Tumi said next, the part most students miss. The IA has advantages that no exam paper will ever give you:

• Marks banked before May. By exam season, a fifth or more of the grade is already done. That is a real cushion on a bad exam day.
• You choose the question. No other assessment lets you study the thing you are curious about: your town’s taxi fares, your grandmother’s garden, a football league, a local election.
• You control the clock. Weeks instead of hours. Students who plan well turn time into marks.
• University skills, early. Research questions, sources, data, referencing and honest evaluation are exactly what first-year university expects.
• A story to tell. A good IA or Extended Essay gives you something real to talk about in a personal statement or an interview.

By the way: if you are not yet sure which subjects and levels suit you, the Stadira School page shows every course from MYP to the Diploma, and you can ask a teacher a question directly.

Chapter 3 · The group chat

Five ways good students lose IA marks

The next morning Lerato asked her DP2 friends what went wrong for them last year. The group chat exploded.

Every year, IB subject reports describe the same few problems. Lerato’s friends had collected most of them:

By the way: the Sciences IA Studio builds these fixes into the screens: word counts that warn you before the limit, uncertainty and graph tools, and prompts that push you from describing to explaining.

Chapter 4 · The plan

How Lerato turned panic into a plan

That evening Lerato opened IA Studio. She expected another long checklist. Instead the screen asked her one question at a time.

1. Three set-up cards. Her course (Maths AI, SL), her school, and her deadlines. She entered her teacher’s class code, so the checkpoints came straight from her class.
2. The topic quiz. It noticed she loved running. Ten minutes later “climate change in Africa” had become “How does air temperature affect finishing times in my city’s 10 km race?”, with a feasibility check: is the data public, is it enough, is it ethical?
3. The aim builder. It flagged “affect” as vague and nudged her to name her variables, place and years.
4. A one-page plan to her teacher. The data steps stayed locked until her teacher approved it. Annoying for a day; priceless later.
5. Data and maths tools. She pasted race results, and the studio flagged two outliers and showed every working step of her regression, so she could explain it herself.
6. Self-check against the criteria. Written in plain student language. She scored herself honestly, saw “Reflection” was weak, and fixed it.
7. Draft out, on time. She downloaded a clean draft with an anonymity check and her AI-use declaration, three days before the checkpoint.

Nothing in the studio wrote a single sentence for her. That is deliberate: IA Studio has no AI writing tool inside it. It organises your thinking and shows you what each criterion is looking for, but every word is yours. A tool that writes for you puts your Diploma at risk, and examiners are trained to notice.

By the way: the same journey exists for the Extended Essay, the TOK essay and the TOK exhibition, the three pieces that decide your 3 core points.

Chapter 5 · Feedback day

What her teacher saw

On the other side of the screen, Lerato’s teacher opened the class dashboard. Eighteen students. Four plans waiting. Two names in red, three in amber, the rest green.

Her teacher did not need to chase anyone through the corridors. The dashboard showed who was behind a checkpoint and who had gone quiet, and one button sent a polite reminder. Lerato’s draft sat in the “Needs you today” inbox, with a comment bank beside it, ready for the one round of feedback the IB allows.

By the way: if you are a teacher or DP coordinator reading this, IA Studio for Schools explains how to set up a class. Your students open it free with the code STADIRA100 until 28 February 2027, or all year on a school licence. Or go straight to the free teacher sign-up.

Epilogue

What Lerato tells DP1 students now

“Pick something small that you actually care about. Plan backwards from the deadline. Hand in a complete draft. And never let anything write it for you.”

That is the whole secret of the IA. It is not about being the cleverest person in the room. It is about a focused question, honest evidence, clear explanation and steady time. Do those four things and the IA becomes the part of the Diploma you can be most sure of.

Ready to start your own story? Below you will find every studio, how they compare, and how to get access free.

The 15 studios, with links

Each studio has a free Start here page you can open before you sign up, showing your steps, how the work is marked and the golden rules for that subject.

The studios side by side

Always check the details against the current subject guide your school uses for your exam session. The studios ask for your exam session and follow the matching guide.

For teachers: run a whole class from one dashboard

IA Studio is just as useful for the teacher. Create a class, share the class code, and your students join with your deadlines already set. Students at a school with a Stadira licence get free access all year.

Students’ names are visible only to their own teacher. Every school runs its IAs at different times of year, so you set your own dates and nothing is fixed to one calendar.

Who IA Studio is for

• IB Diploma students at any school, in any country, in Year 12 or Year 13, at SL or HL.
• Students without a strong IA mentor at school, who need structure and examples to work from.
• Strong students aiming for a 7, who want to make sure no criterion is left on the table.
• Teachers and IA supervisors who want every student moving and every checkpoint visible.
• Parents who want to see real progress, not just “I’m working on it”.

How to start today

1. Pick your studio from the list above and open its free Start here page.
2. Create a free Stadira account or sign in with Google.
3. Claim free access with code STADIRA100 (until 28 February 2027), or with your teacher’s class code if your school has a Stadira licence.
4. Open IA Studio and set up your course, school and deadlines.
5. Do Step 1 tonight. The topic quiz takes about ten minutes, and choosing a topic is the hardest part.

Questions students and teachers ask

Why does the IB have internal assessments at all?

Because a written exam can only show what you remember under time pressure. The IA shows what you can do with a subject: ask a real question, gather evidence, use the subject’s tools and judge the limits of your own work. It is marked by your teacher and moderated by the IB.

How much is the IA worth?

In most Diploma subjects the IA is 20 to 30 percent of the subject grade, and more in a few design-based subjects. Because every subject has one, the IAs together shape a large part of your final score out of 45.

Does IA Studio write my IA for me?

No. IA Studio is AI-free and never writes or suggests your content. It guides your thinking, checks the rules and shows you what each criterion asks for. Every word in your IA is yours.

Is it only for students in Botswana?

No. IA Studio is for IB students at any school, in any country. Most studios have topic cards that work anywhere, and you can filter for “Any country” or “Botswana”.

Does it follow the new IB guides?

Yes. You choose your exam session, and the studio follows the matching guide: for example the new Extended Essay guide (from May 2027), the new Psychology IA (first assessed 2027), a separate History studio for exams from May 2028, and the next Maths guide for later sessions.

Does my teacher have to be on Stadira?

No. You can work alone in self-study mode, with deadlines planned back from your own final due date. If your teacher creates a class, you join with the class code and they can approve your plan and give feedback in the studio.

Can I use it on my phone?

Yes. Every studio works on a phone, with large text you can resize. For long writing sessions a laptop is more comfortable.

What do I get at the end?

A complete draft as a Word or PDF file, set out under the right headings, with a word or page count, an anonymity check and your AI-use declaration, ready for your teacher’s one round of feedback.

Who marks my IA?

Your teacher marks your IA, and the IB moderates it. IA Studio helps you check your own draft against each criterion before it goes in, so you know where you stand.

How much does it cost?

P499 per studio for 12 months. With code STADIRA100, every studio is free until 28 February 2027. Students at a school with a Stadira licence get free access all year.

IA Studio is an independent study tool from Stadira Training Institute. It is not produced or endorsed by the International Baccalaureate Organization. Always follow your school’s IA calendar and your teacher’s instructions.