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Research from the IB

Research about IB

Research Findings about the IB Program

  • In the US, 85% of IB students enrolled in a university immediately after high school, compared to 66% of all high school graduates. 90% of those IB students returned to the same university in their second year. (Pilchen, Caspary, Woodworth, 2020).
  • In the UK, researchers explored university enrollment and achievement of matched cohorts and found that IB students were three times more likely than their A-level peers to attend a top twenty university and receive a first-class honors degree (Duxbury et al, 2021)
  • A study in Turkey found that IB graduates had higher subject grades in all five subject areas examined, overall grade point averages and graduation rates than their non-IB counterparts (Ateskan et al 2015).
  • Researchers in a global study comparing IB Math courses to the AP program, Alberta Diploma, GCE A levels, and Singapore-Cambridge GCE A levels, found that IB offered the greatest number of mathematical course options for students with different needs and that IB Math HL was the most cognitively demanding course out there (Alcantara 2016 and UK NARIC 2016)
  • Low-income IB students in US Title 1 schools enrolled students in college at similar rates to all IB students in US public schools.  They also had much higher rates than the national average for low-income students.  This was particularly true for African-American students in the study (Gordon, VanderKamp and Halic 2015)
  • In Japan, IB students had higher self-ratings for being internationally-minded and had higher expectations of acquiring problem solving and leadership skills while in high school (Yamamoto et al 2016)
  • In Australia, gains were found in critical-thinking between the two successive years of the Diploma Program.  Students were also found to use a higher array of critical-thinking skills (Cole, Gannon, Ullman, and Rooney 2014).
  • In Romanian high schools, it was found that the IB program fosters students' academic persistence to a higher degree than does the traditional education system.  It was found that IB supported this 'persistence' through the development of specific psychological traits that contribute to students' academic persistence level (Holman et al 2016).
  • IB students had a higher university graduation rate (83%) compared to the the US national average (56%) (Bergeron 2015)
  • US IB graduates are significantly more likely to persist and to complete college than their non-IB counterparts (Conley, McGaughy, Davis-Molin, Farkas, and Fukuda, 2014). 
  • Qualitative data found that IB graduates in the US  were better able to adjust to the riors of university coursework; students specifically highlighted a number of skills gained through participation in the DP, including critical-thinking, time management and research skills (Conley, McGaughy, Davis-Molin, Farkas, and Fukuda, 2014).