Students' strategies for planning and reflecting on the process of carrying out the international baccalaureate personal project

Students in International Baccalaureate (IB) schools running the Middle Years Programme have been involved in completing the IB Personal Project for a number of years. This chapter describes how the IB approach to research influences students' learning in terms of how they plan and reflect on carrying out a research project, and could provide a framework for students completing research projects in schools that do not run the IB programme. The IB Personal Project has students planning a project, collecting resources to carry it out, presenting the completed project, and reflecting on the research process. This chapter discusses an investigation in which 24 students were interviewed about how they planned and reflected on their work on the IB Personal Project before carrying it out and after they had completed the project. Three case studies illustrate "less productive," "productive," and "very productive" sequences of students' planning and reflecting strategies.