Estimated time: 6 min
Learning objectives
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
- Turn something you actually care about into a focused, examiner-ready research question
- Decide when an interdisciplinary approach is worth it — and when to stay in one subject
- Get your research question and subjects approved by your EE mentor early
Let's meet John
John isn't passionate about much. He's bored 90% of the time, only plays video games, hangs out with his friends, and doesn't want to write his extended essay at all. He even plans to make Gemini or Claude complete it the day of his first draft submission.
John couldn't care less about choosing a well-thought-out EE research question, but I think the EE could be John's favourite part of the IB. Why? Because it allows him to explore whatever — in this case, say John has chosen Mathematics AI HL (dreadful subject, ugh) and Psychology HL. We know one very important thing about John, and that is he loves his friends (April, Jeremiah, Lacey, and Jeff).
Which brings us to our second point.
Decide the appropriate pathway
John was hanging out with his friends on a fine Sunday morning, and as he conversed with his mates they spoke about whether they would have voted for Trump or Harris in the 2024 US elections. April and Jeremiah argued Trump would be better for the economy, while Lacey and Jeff argued Kamala was the obvious choice because of her pro-choice abortion policies.
John observed certain connections between April and Jeremiah, as well as connections between Lacey and Jeff. Since he already spent so much time hanging with his friends, he read my Blueprint to Get an A in Your EE guide and decided to delve into voter psychology in the 2024 American elections.
John wondered if he could draw conclusions about the voter psychology of the opposing sides while analysing the elections using probability and statistics that he learnt in his Math HL class. He thought that in order to analyse the 2024 elections in particular, he would fare well if he chose an interdisciplinary approach.
He later watched the news and saw that the 2024 elections in particular were heavily influenced by social media. He wondered to what extent his friends were influenced by social media and right-wing and left-wing commentators.
Boom. There it was.
To what extent did social media influence voter psychology and election outcomes in the 2024 US elections?
Well, maybe he used a little ChatGPT to “zhuzh” it up a bit and focus it.
To what extent can quantitative analysis of social media sentiment and engagement metrics explain variations in voter behavior during the 2024 US elections?
Once you get to this point — and this is very important — please go to your EE mentor. They can help you make it more focused and specific if you need to, or just transform it for the better. Trust your teacher and get your EE topic approved as soon as possible.
We as students often underestimate how focused our research question needs to be, and our EE mentors can often help us focus and refine our question to ensure a more detailed and thorough analysis.
Choose the approved DP subjects
In this scenario, the approved EE subjects would be Psychology and Math.
PS: This is just an example, but ideally try to focus your EE on one subject. While an interdisciplinary approach shows your ability to apply your learning to real-world scenarios, it requires double the analysis, as you need to analyse the topic using the approaches and models of both subjects, which can become tricky.