Research Methods in Psychology for High School Students

High school teachers face common challenges. How do we assist students to cognitively advance before they typically do on their own? How do we maintain a scholarly atmosphere in the classroom and still keep the material relevant to student lives?

The purpose of this book is to turn students into investigators of psychology. I want to reframe student ideas that research is an abstraction, and help them come to the realization that a listing of facts is meaningless without understanding their origin. Once students understand the real meaning of psychological information, the “facts” have a clear application.

This book assists students in designing a simple experiment appropriate for the International Baccalaureate psychology curriculum. Students also learn the basics of non-experimental design so they can run simple studies and interpret the meaning of information obtained by the different methods in essays.

All teachers can appreciate the problem solving approach to learning about research methods. Scores on all tests formats can improve if students develop a true understanding of methodology. Students remember what they understand!