Inclusive study designs and reporting standards
Inclusive study designs
Collaborative research models
Collaborative research models, such as participatory action research and community-based participatory researchopens in new window, promote the democratization of the research process and the equitable involvement of communities in their own research. Many journals encourage submissions using collaborative methodologies.
View APA’s Deep Poverty Initiative Research Action Guide (PDF, 174KB)opens in new window for guidelines on conducting ethical and socially just research with historically marginalized participants and communities.
Diverse samples
Many APA journals seek submissions which extend beyond samples from White/Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) populations (Henrich et al., 2010opens in new window). If a submission includes an all-White or Western sample, authors must include a sample justification and a description of their sample inclusion process.
Registered Reports
Registered Reports are a form of empirical article in which the methods and proposed analyses are pre-registered and peer-reviewed for significance and methodological approach prior to research being conducted. By shifting peer review to the methodology and design (rather than the perceived or reported impact or novelty of the results), Registered Reports support a more inclusive scientific process.
Inclusive reporting standards
APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards for Race, Ethnicity, and Culture
The APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards for Race, Ethnicity, and Culture (APA Style JARS–REC) outlines best practices related to the manner in which race and ethnicity should be discussed in scientific research articles. Compiled by a team of scholars on the basis of theoretically informed recommendations, JARS–REC are designed to be used when reporting all research in psychology. These standards represent one initiative resulting from the 2021 Apology to People of Color for APA’s Role in Promoting, Perpetuating, and Failing to Challenge Racism, Racial Discrimination, and Human Hierarchy in U.S.
Bias-free language and community-driven language guidelines
APA emphasizes the need to talk about all people with inclusivity and respect. Writers using APA Style must strive to use language that is free of bias and avoid perpetuating prejudicial beliefs or demeaning attitudes in their writing.
Visit the APA Style website to learn more about our guidelines for using bias-free language.
Author contribution roles using CRediT
Authors who include author contribution statements in the author note of a manuscript promote accuracy, transparency, and visibility for the range of contributions to the published work. APA authors are encouraged to use the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT)opens in new window to automatically collect author contribution statements at submission.
Reflexivity
The APA Guidelines on Race and Ethnicity in Psychology (PDF, 577KB)opens in new window call for researchers to engage in reflective practice around positionality. Before conducting their research and throughout their study design and data collection processes, researchers are encouraged to ask themselves:
- Why am I conducting this research?
- What roles do my values and worldview play in my selection of the topic or design of the study?
- Does the design or framing of my research reinforce negative stereotypes about historically excluded and oppressed groups?
- What are the policy implications of my findings?
- Could my research be misinterpreted or misused to cause harm, or to negatively affect historically oppressed or excluded groups? If so, what is my responsibility for addressing and mitigating this potential for harm?
Positionality statements
Positionality statements are intended to address potential author bias by transparently reporting how the identities of the authors relate to the research/article topic and to the identity of the participants, as well as the extent to which those identities are represented in the scientific record. Some journals encourage authors to include positionality statements in the author note.
For more guidance on writing positionality statements, read Know Thyself: How to Write a Reflexivity Statementopens in new window, authored by Dr. Sherry Hamby, PhD, founding editor of Psychology of Violence.
Data sharing and data availability statements
Openly and freely shared data can help foster scientific discovery, particularly among researchers who are geographically dispersed or who have limited resources to collect data. Many journals encourage or require data sharing, asking authors to include a data availability statement in the author note.
Impact statements
Impact statements summarize the significance of a study's findings for a general audience in one to three sentences. Such statements allow authors to emphasize the intention and importance their work. In addition to affording authors more control over how their work is interpreted, impact statements also enable the findings to be available to a wider, more diverse audience that spans across disciplines and to the general public.
Read APA’s guidance for writing impact statements.
Year(s) of data collection
Reporting the year(s) of data collection in an article is an important way to contextualize the study’s findings. Some journals may require authors to report the year(s) of data collection in both the abstract and in the methods section.
Participant sample descriptions
The methods and abstracts for articles published in APA journals should include specific information related to age, disability status, sex, gender identity, racial and ethnic identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, clinical diagnoses and comorbidities, and the intersectionality of these attributes when describing participants.
Sample justifications
In addition to describing sample demographics, authors should also justify their samples and supply an overview of their sample inclusion efforts in the methods section.
Constraints on generality statements
Constraints on generality (COG) statements are meant to identify and justify target populations for reported findings—noting characteristics contributing to the effect as well as characteristics they think were irrelevant (Simons, et al., 2017opens in new window).Some journals require authors to include COG statements in the Discussion section of their manuscripts.
Inclusive reference lists
Research has shown that there is often a racial/ethnic and gender imbalance in article reference lists, and that Black women’s work is disproportionately not credited or cited as often as White authors’ work (Bertolero, et al., 2020opens in new window; Bailey & Trudy, 2018opens in new window). Some journals ask authors to affirm that they have checked for a gender and race/ethnicity balance in their reference lists prior to submission; reviewers are encouraged to check reference lists for inclusivity and to provide recommendations for other relevant works by authors from historically excluded groups.
Authors are encouraged to use this code for assessing gender and race/ethnicity in reference listsopens in new window from Zhou, et al. (2020) before submitting their manuscripts.
Board of Scientific Affairs Task Force on Inequities in Academic Tenure and Promotion: Task Force Charge
The task force will focus on systemic barriers and inequities that affect the evaluation of psychological scientists of color under review for promotion and tenure decisions.