Can I do a psychology experiment in high school without a lab?

Yes, if it is small and low risk. A short task done with willing classmates or family can work, but it still counts as human participant research. Get review and permission first, and keep the task free of anything stressful.

Do I need a mentor for a psychology project?

Not for a literature review or a public dataset project. A mentor helps most when you plan to collect data from people, because someone experienced can check your ethics plan and your measures.

Is a survey of my classmates allowed?

It can be, with review. Science fair rules treat surveys as human participant research that needs approval and, for minors, written parental permission. Ask your school or the competition before you send a single question.

Psychology Research Project Ideas for High School Students

Choosing a topic is an early step in our guide on how to do research in high school. Many psychology idea lists hand you a title and stop. This page starts from the method, because in psychology the method decides whether you need people, permission and review, or none of those.

What makes a good psychology research project for a high school student?

A good psychology project is one narrow question that a method within your reach can answer. Topics such as stress, sleep, social media or memory are fine, but only as a starting point. “Does social media hurt teens?” is too broad to answer. “How do two survey years compare on one reported behavior?” is a project.

Screen each idea on these points before you commit:

Check	What to ask
Method	Can you run it with a dataset, a literature review or a small low-risk task?
People	Will you collect answers from anyone, and are they under 18?
Review	Who must approve it before you begin?
Measure	Can you state in one sentence what you will count or compare?

If an idea fails the people or review check, change the method before you change the standard. Our general guide to picking a research project idea you can finish covers the same screen for every subject.

Which public datasets work for psychology projects?

Several free national datasets let you study behavior, attitudes and time use without recruiting anyone. Each agency documents its own data, so read the guide before you analyze it.

Source	What the source says about itself	Good for
CDC Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System	National, state and district datasets, which the CDC calls the largest public health surveillance system in the U.S.^[3]	Teen health behaviors compared across groups or survey years
General Social Survey (NORC)	A survey of the attitudes, behaviors and attributes of the American public, running since 1972, with new mental health stigma data in the 2024 release^[4]	Attitudes and how they differ by group or over time
American Time Use Survey (BLS)	A measure of the amount of time people spend on activities such as work, caregiving, volunteering and social time^[5]	How time is spent, and how that differs by group

Two access notes. The CDC provides its YRBS files in Access and ASCII formats, with SAS and SPSS programs for reading them.^[3] A spreadsheet-only student may find a published table or an interactive tool easier than a raw file, so check what each page offers. The General Social Survey page describes a data explorer for finding, analyzing and saving custom extracts.^[4]

What are some psychology research project ideas you can start with?

Each idea below is a hypothetical starting point, not a finished question. Narrow the group, the measure and the period before you begin, and open the source to confirm the variables you need exist.

Teen behavior across groups. Compare one reported behavior between two groups in a YRBS dataset, such as two grade levels.^[3] Method: a table of group percentages and a chart. People involved: none.
Attitudes over time. Pick one repeated attitude question in the General Social Survey and compare two periods or two groups.^[4] Method: a cross-tab and a short write-up of what changed and what did not.
How time is spent. Compare how people in two groups spend time on one activity using the American Time Use Survey.^[5] Method: average time per activity, with the survey’s own definitions.
Literature review on one finding. Choose a published psychology result, read several papers on it and summarize where they agree and disagree. Method: a structured review with a table of studies. People involved: none.
Small replication plan. Write a plan to repeat a simple published task, such as a color-and-word reading task, and register the plan before you collect anything.^[6] Running it with participants needs review (see below), so a written plan alone is a real first project.
Short peer survey. Ask willing classmates a few neutral questions about one habit. Method: a survey with a consent form. This is human participant research and needs approval first.
Public observation. Count a visible behavior in a public place, such as how people use a library space, without talking to anyone or recording identifying details. Method: a tally sheet. Check the rule below for when this counts as exempt.

Each project fits a short paper, a poster or a class presentation. If you want a lab-based route instead, see our guide to getting a lab position.

What ethics rules apply to psychology projects with people?

Research that collects information from people needs review before it starts, and for minors the rules add permission steps. Society for Science, which sets science fair rules, says human participant research must be approved by an Institutional Review Board before any interaction with participants begins.^[1] For minors it requires assent from the student participant and written parental permission, and a survey must be attached to the consent form.^[1]

The same page lists what does not need that review: studies of public or published datasets with no interaction with people, and unrestricted public observation with no interaction and no recording of personally identifiable data.^[1] It does not exempt anonymous surveys, which it lists as human participant studies that need review.^[1] Online surveys must safeguard IP addresses as well as the data.^[1]

The American Psychological Association’s code, written for psychologists, is looser on one point. It says researchers may dispense with informed consent only for specific cases, including anonymous questionnaires, naturalistic observation or archival research where responses would not put participants at risk and confidentiality is protected.^[2] It also says psychologists do not use deception unless it is justified and no other approach works, and that they must give participants a chance to learn what the research found.^[2]

When two rule sets differ, follow the stricter one that applies to you, and ask your school, mentor or competition which that is.

How do you turn a psychology idea into a project?

Turn an idea into a project by writing the question, the method and the stopping point before you collect or open any data. A plan written first keeps you from searching for a result and then describing it as if you had planned it. The Center for Open Science describes preregistration as a time-stamped, read-only version of your study plan, posted before the work begins.^[6]

Follow these steps:

Write one question that compares two groups, two periods or two conditions.
Choose the method from the table above and note whether people are involved.
If people are involved, get review and written permission before recruiting anyone.
Write down what you will measure and how, including the exact survey items or table.
Collect or download the data and keep an untouched copy.
Compare the groups with averages, simple charts or percentages.
Write what the pattern shows, what it does not show and what other explanations remain.

Keep your claims modest. A comparison can show that two things differ, and it rarely shows why. For help with the write-up and what to say about your role, see our guide to describing research on the Common App.

What should you do next?

Open one dataset from the table, find a variable that matches an idea you like, and write your question in one sentence. If you would rather ask people, talk to a teacher or mentor about review before you write a single survey item. When the work is done, turning a research project into a college essay shows one way to tell the story. If you want an outside view of how your overall profile reads, the free review on ivy-league.io is built for that.

What do we not know?

The sources and ideas here are examples, not a complete or ranked list, and the starter questions are hypothetical. Agencies revise their data, add survey years and change access, so read the current documentation for any dataset you use. The ethics rules cited are science fair rules and a professional code; your school, district, mentor or journal may set its own, and the rules for minors vary by place. Public data can show that things differ between groups, and it rarely shows that one caused the other. We do not know which project types teachers, mentors or admissions readers find most useful, and no source we know of shows that any project changes an admission decision.