The official first-assessment-2027 guide describes three mandatory reflection sessions: an initial conversation, an interim session and a final viva voce. The sessions are recorded on the relevant reflection form. The IB recommends roughly 20–30 minutes for sessions; this is a recommendation, not a claim that all schools schedule an identical duration. Confirm your school's own meeting process and final documentation rules.
A log should preserve the decision, not just the feeling
Imagine a student investigating how local newspapers represented a contentious planning decision over several years. Their first idea is to compare every published article in an entire country. That feels ambitious but is not feasible for a single focused essay. After a source review, they narrow the date window, select two newspaper archives and define a coding approach to distinguish opinion from reporting.
The following is an original fictional teaching log, not a real student's RPF or an officially graded reflection.
| Date/stage | Evidence or problem | Decision made | What changed in the research | Transferable learning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Initial exploration | Archives are incomplete before a certain year | Narrow the study to a justified period with comparable material | Research question becomes answerable | Feasibility matters more than topic size |
| First source audit | Headlines and full articles imply different frames | Code full-text samples and retain context | Avoids headline-only inference | Operational definitions change conclusions |
| Interim challenge | Two coders disagree on what counts as "negative" framing | Write a coding rule and trial it on new articles | Makes claims more reproducible | Disagreement can expose ambiguous methods |
| Before final draft | A plausible contrary case appears | Include and explain the contrary evidence | Argument becomes less absolute but stronger | Evaluation improves through falsification |
| Viva voce preparation | Student can explain the changing scope | Select two genuine decisions and consequences | Reflection ties the process to actual learning | Research skills transfer to new contexts |
Do not reproduce this hypothetical table as if the decisions were yours. Your evidence must come from your own research-process notes, source reviews and supervisor meetings.
Three weak reflection sentences and their stronger counterparts
Weak: "I learned to manage my time." More informative: "My first archive search yielded much less comparable material than I expected, so I changed the date range and reserved a separate day for checking missing sources. The adjustment made it possible to test the same coding rule across the selected publications."
Weak: "The essay helped my critical thinking." More informative: "When my initial interpretation failed on a counterexample, I rewrote the category definitions and tested them against additional evidence. I now treat an unexpected result as a reason to inspect the method rather than delete the evidence."
Weak: "My teacher helped me." More informative: "My supervisor asked whether my sources represented the same population. I checked publication coverage and realized two years were not comparable. I revised the research question myself and noted the remaining limitations."
These are examples of more specific forms of explanation, not templates to submit verbatim. The IB expects authentic student reflection. A sophisticated sentence cannot replace an event that never happened.
Prepare for the three conversations in different ways
Before the first reflection, bring a possible question, initial sources, the method you think you need and the risk that most threatens feasibility. Before the interim conversation, bring concrete findings, contradictions, one unresolved method decision and a proposed next step. Before the viva voce, bring the finished essay, the decisions that most changed it and what you would do differently in another inquiry. The final discussion is not a second oral defence of every fact in the essay; it is an opportunity to discuss the actual learning experience and authenticity of the work.
Keep a personal researcher's reflection space (RRS) or similar contemporaneous notes rather than rebuilding your story in the final week. Distinguish what your supervisor suggested from what you ultimately decided. If a method failed, state precisely what its failure taught you, and avoid presenting ordinary inconvenience as evidence of profound transformation.
Why this is different from the essay's argument
The essay argues for an answer to the research question; reflection explains what you learned about how to research, reason and respond to uncertainty. You can write a logically strong paper while having a thin reflection record, or keep detailed research notes while your argument remains weak. Treat these as connected but different jobs.
This is also why old pre-2027 EE rubric explanations should not be pasted over the new criterion headings. The revised framework separately assesses the essay's framework, knowledge, analysis, discussion/evaluation and reflection. Check the first-assessment year whenever using older exemplars or grade claims.
Official IB sources and boundaries
- First-assessment-2027 EE update and the five revised criteria, including 4 reflection marks: https://www-prod.ibo.org/university-admission/latest-curriculum-updates/dp-extended-essay-updates
- Official EE first-assessment-2027 subject/academic guide, including mandatory RPF reflection sessions, initial/interim/final purposes and viva voce: https://www.ibo.org/globalassets/new-structure/university-admission/pdfs/subject-guides/extended-essay-first-assessment-2027-guide-sbs.pdf
The decision log, example quotations and investigation are original synthetic teaching material. No fictional student is represented as a real graduate or an IB examiner. Use your genuine process and school-approved instructions. ibacalao.com provides separate draft-review tools.
Continue with related guides
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