High School and College Psychology: Two Different Worlds

Abstract

More than 300 public high schools were surveyed about psychology classes, with approximately 60% of the schools responding. The faculty for these courses are invariably in social studies departments, have little undergraduate or graduate coursework in psychology, and generally are not aware of the APA high school psychology program. The one-semester course emphasizes personality and developmental psychology and, to a lesser extent, social psychology, learning, and health. This personality–developmental focus and the resulting lack of student preparation for the more science-oriented college course is attributed to the limited training of the high school instructors, their job environment, and their goals for the course.