American Psychological Association
A Tasty Sample(r): Teaching about Sampling Using M&M’s
Here's a sweet activity! As part of a study of psychological research methods and statistic gathering, individuals develop a hypothesis about the number of each color of M&Ms in a fun-size package. They then count the number of each...
American Psychological Association
Research Ethics
Psychologists designing experiments to research human behavior must consider weighty ethical concerns. Class members act as members of an institutional review board and examine proposals to determine whether included provisions...
American Psychological Association
Do Cookies/Donuts Improve Memory? Errors in Methodology
If the methodology is skewed, the results will be skewed. That's the takeaway from an exercise designed to get class members thinking about research methods and statistics gathering. Instructors manipulate the testing environment to...
American Psychological Association
Childhood Obesity
The United States leads the world in the percentage of obese adults and children. Why? What can be done about the problem? High school psychology classes adopt a problem-focused approach to investigating childhood obesity and then...
American Psychological Association
Counting Fidgets: Teaching the Complexity of Naturalistic Observation
Why do psychologists conduct experiments in controlled laboratory settings? High schoolers gain an understanding of the importance of controls with an activity that involves naturalistic observations with no imposed controls.
American Psychological Association
Resource Vetting Rubric
How do you assure that the resources you find for your classes are of good quality? Check out a vetting rubric that suggests eight questions to ask when considering lesson plans, activities, demonstrations, and pictures for classroom use.