International Baccalaureate Career-related Certificate (IBCC): Evaluation and the Involvement of the IB research team

The International Baccalaureate Career-related Certificate (IBCC) is a new IB initiative (not a new IB programme), that aims to work with, and support, schools and colleges that wish to add an international dimension to their vocational offerings.

The IBCC incorporates the educational principles, vision and learner profile of the IB, into local school and college vocational programmes and specifically addresses the needs of students engaged in career-related education. The IB’s involvement allows these students to be exposed to elements of an IB education, through a selection of Diploma Programme subjects and a unique IBCC core.

The IB research team will assist in the evaluation of the IBCC. This will be done through collecting data from each school and by triangulating this with a more in-depth qualitative investigation of one college as a case study. The quantitative methods to be used for the general evaluation of each school or college will be initial and final questionnaires, sample interviews and data from IB course results. The case study will use interviews with students, staff and management, student focus group discussions and follow up questionnaires to collect data.

From this research and data collection, a report will be written evaluating the IBCC pilot project. It is expected that a variety of presentations to IB and academic audiences, as well as several research articles, will be also result from the IBCC pilot. The evaluation will be critical to the development of the IBCC and the network of support systems for schools and colleges using the certificate in the future.