APA’s revised National Standards for High School Psychology Curricula emphasize the importance of infusing research across all units of the high school psychology course. By embedding research methods into all course units, teachers can demonstrate that research and scientific inquiry are the foundation of the field. The importance of students being able to understand research methods was underscored when the College Board likewise asked students to interpret research methods and design across the Advanced Placement (AP) Psychology course in the revised AP Psychology course and exam description.
APA offers a wide variety of free resources that provide all high school psychology teachers with research studies. Teachers are encouraged to consider the following resources for course planning.
APA journals article spotlight
Summaries of research articles recently published in APA Journals™.
- Check out these Spotlights.
- Subscribe to receive updates .
APA Monitor on Psychology research In Brief
Summaries of the latest peer-reviewed studies within psychology and related fields.
- Explore the current issue of the Monitor on Psychology (apa.org) .
- Search past issues by navigating to the Monitor archive and searching by column/department for In Brief.
Resources to broaden diversity representation in the high school psychology curriculum
Research summaries that align to the five content pillars of the National Standards for High School Psychology Curricula.
Technology, Mind, and Behavior journal
This APA journal is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal that publishes work in the area of human-technology interaction, with a focus on human behavior at the individual or group level.
Scholarship of teaching and learning in psychology
Free access to a few sample articles .
Free APA Journals™ articles
Access to full articles from subdisciplines of psychology covered by more than 90 APA Journals™ publications. This resource is no longer updated (the articles are from 2016).
Particularly exciting experiments in psychology
Provides free summaries of research from six journals focused on experimental psychology. This resource is no longer updated (the articles are from 2013–19)
Activities from TOPSS stress and health unit lesson plan
The TOPSS lesson plan on stress and healthopens in new window includes several activities that provide teachers with research summaries and invite students to evaluate and understand the independent and dependent variables of the study, critique the study, and determine whether the hypothesis was supported. See Critical Thinking Exercise 4.1 (Stress and the Common Cold), Critical Thinking Exercise 4.2 (Stress and Healing), Critical Thinking Exercise 5.1 (Is Popularity Protective Against Stress?), and Critical Thinking Exercise 5.2 (Being Mindful).
Translational Issues in Psychological Science (TPS) journal
This journal includes articles that focus on relating basic science and clinical research to applied outcomes in a variety of settings, written in an accessible format for teachers and students. While not every article is a pure research article (some summarize multiple research findings or represent multiple viewpoints on different topics), TPS does include research articles that can be used by teachers and students to better understand research methods. This is a member benefit to APA teacher affiliates .
These additional free APA resources are also helpful to teachers:
- Psychology topics : Access research, podcasts, and publications on nearly 100 topics.
- APA Dictionary of Psychology : Over 25,000 authoritative entries across 90 subfields of psychology.
- APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards : These standards offer guidance on what information should be included in all manuscript sections for quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research.
- Coursera Psychological Research Specialization : Three courses designed for beginners with no background in research methods are available, including Methods for Quantitative Research in Psychology, Statistics in Psychological Research, and Ethics of Psychological Research.
Sue Orsillo is the senior director of psychology education and training at APA. Her current areas of focus include supporting educators in their implementation of the Introductory Psychology Initiative SLOs, Principles for Quality Undergraduate Education in Psychology, and APA Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major; broadening representation of educators and students in APA; strengthening pathways into the discipline; and supporting students in their career exploration and professional development. Before joining APA, Sue taught, supervised and mentored undergraduate students, doctoral students in clinical psychology, interns, and postdoctoral fellows for close to 25 years. Her clinical research focused on using acceptance-based behavioral therapy to prevent and treat anxiety and related disorders.
