IB Mathematics Internal Assessment
Sport is the most popular context for the Maths IA and one of the most wasted. Students love it, so engagement is easy, and then the mathematics turns out to be a table of averages. Here is how to keep the enthusiasm and still build something that can score.
You already care about the context, you probably have access to real data, and you understand the situation well enough to spot a result that looks wrong. All of that is genuinely useful. The trap is that sport is so full of ready-made numbers that students skip the hard part, which is deciding what question the mathematics is there to answer.
A sports statistics page is not an exploration. If your plan reads "I will collect results and work out the mean, the median and a correlation", you have described a worksheet. The mathematics needs a job to do that the sport alone cannot do for you.
Goals per game, points per match, batting averages. You rank people by a number that someone else already calculated. There is no modelling choice, and the answer depends on a definition of "best" that you never examine.
Wage against league position, height against rebounds, training hours against results. One coefficient, one scatter graph, one sentence. Correlation is the first step of an argument, not the argument itself.
Projectile motion with a formula you did not derive and numbers you did not measure. If the equations could have been lifted from a physics revision site, the mathematics is borrowed and the engagement is invisible.
Choose a way of turning past results into a prediction, then check it on matches or races it has not seen. The interesting part is deciding what to include and what to ignore, and being honest about where the model fails.
Where to stand, when to attempt a risky play, how to split effort across a race, which angle to shoot from. Define what "best" means, state the constraints, and show how the answer shifts when a constraint changes.
Scoring systems, tie-break rules, tournament formats, serving sequences. You can model the structure of the contest and ask whether the rules reward the stronger side or add luck. Simulation is a legitimate tool here, provided you also explain why it is trustworthy.
Sprint splits, shot success from different distances, lap times over a season. You know exactly how the data was gathered, you can say what went wrong on the day, and the messiness is yours to reason about. See the guide on collecting your own data.
A shooting angle on a court, the path of a ball from video frames, a running line round a bend. Measure it yourself, build the model from what you measured, then compare the model with a second set of measurements.
Take "does a team with more possession win more often?" as a starting idea. As it stands it is a correlation. To make it an exploration, push on the idea until the mathematics has decisions in it.
None of that needs advanced mathematics. It needs a question you can defend and a willingness to examine your own result.
Reflection and personal engagement come far more easily here than in most contexts, provided you record the moments where your expectation and your result disagreed. Those moments are worth more than another table.
Got a sports idea and not sure it can score?
Send me the question and what you plan to do with the numbers. I read real submitted explorations every year, and I will tell you honestly whether the mathematics has enough to do, while there is still time to change direction.
Get the IA sorted with meMore like this: all Maths IA guides. Related: modelling in the Maths IA
These pages are free and stay free, but they are general and your IA is not. Send me your research question, or whatever exists so far, and I will tell you in writing whether the topic has a ceiling on it, where the marks are going, and what to change first. That costs nothing and it comes back within 24 hours.
Written by a serving IB Diploma and Career-related Programme Coordinator and Head of Mathematics, who reads internal assessments across every subject group every year. If you then want the whole draft reviewed properly against all five criteria, that is the paid one, and it is refunded if it does not name at least three specific things to fix.
Get a free verdict Full written review, $99
I never write any part of it. Not a sentence, not a calculation, not your data. Under 18: a parent buys this and the thread is with them. I do not work with students at my own school.