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National Standards for High School Psychology Curricula
Preface
Why Learn About Psychology in High School?
Most of the challenging problems or otherwise salient issues of our society are linked in part to human attitudes, values, and behavior. Promoting health and safety, learning skills, work productivity, child and adolescent development, and human effectiveness in a world of technology and information are a few examples of such issues. Societal concerns about crime and violence, poverty and prejudice, environmental and consumer issues are yet other examples that directly implicate human thought and behavior. The science of psychology, in collaboration with other scientific fields, is contributing to our understanding of these problems and to their solutions. Thus, as the science of mind and behavior, an introduction to the discipline of psychology should be part of the curriculum for high school students.
Through the study of scientific psychology, students gain an understanding of the complexities of human thought and behavior, as well as the factors related to the differences between people. Students also gain a basic understanding of the scientific methods that are at the core of the discipline. Students are able to directly apply knowledge gained from a psychology class to their daily lives. The scope of high school psychology is extensive; the American Psychological Association (APA) estimates that about 370,000 high school students annually are enrolled in psychology classes. In 2005, about 86,000 students took the Advanced Placement psychology exam.
Psychology is a science with connections to social and natural sciences. Because of the departmental structure of American high schools, psychology courses are taught in either the social studies department or the science department (or both). Such departmental designations often influence the curriculum. Courses in the social studies department may emphasize history, personality, and social psychology, whereas courses in the science department frequently emphasize biological bases of behavior, sensation and perception, and learning. Neither social studies nor science curriculum standards have addressed psychology adequately. Consequently, these variations in high school courses of psychologymean that students' first exposures to psychology as a discipline can be vastly different in content and level of challenge from one school to another, unlike what is expected in other fields of science taught in secondary schools.
It is apparent that if psychology is to be learned as a scientific discipline at the secondary level of education, as are other sciences, there need to be learning objectives within the subfields of psychology. It was in this context that the American Psychological Association commissioned the Task Force for the Development of National High School Psychology Standards in 1994 to develop standards that identify what students in an introductory high school psychology course should learn. Task force members included experienced psychology educators at the secondary and university levels as well as other scientists in the profession.
From the onset of this project, the task force members anticipated the need for periodic revision of the standards due to the continued advancement of psychology as a discipline. Soon after the original approval in August 1999 of the psychology curricula standards, the High School Psychology Standards Working Group was formed to coordinate the revision process. A rigorous review process was conducted to produce a document that represents the best practices in the teaching of psychology as both a natural and social science. This current version of the standards reflects the growing and evolving body of knowledge high school psychology students are expected to learn.
These standards were designed to enhance quality curricula, to express learning goals for students, and to promote change in the teaching of the high school introductory psychology course. The public has a right to expect a course in psychology to meet criteria for quality. Expectations with respect to learning goals should be clear. Standards related to knowledge and skills expected of students should be high but attainable. This document represents a vision of what students should know and be able to do after completing the high school psychology course.
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