Reporting Standards for Research in Psychology Why Do We Need Them? What Might They Be? APA Publications and Communications Board Working Group on Journal Article Reporting Standards In anticipation of the impending revision of the Publication Manual of t

(JARS) and charged it to provide the board with back-ground and recommendations on information that should be included in manuscripts submitted to APA journals that report (a) new data collections and (b) meta-analyses. The JARS Group reviewed efforts in related fields to develop standards and sought input from other knowledgeable groups. The resulting recommendations contain (a) stan-dards for all journal articles, (b) more specific standards for reports of studies with experimental manipulations or evaluations of interventions using research designs involv-ing random or nonrandom assignment, and (c) standards for articles reporting meta-analyses. The JARS Group an-ticipated that standards for reporting other research de-signs (e.g., observational studies, longitudinal studies) would emerge over time. This report also (a) examines societal developments that have encouraged researchers to provide more details when reporting their studies, (b) notes important differences between requirements, standards, and recommendations for reporting, and (c) examines ben-efits and obstacles to the development and implementation of reporting standards