Dr Daniel Jolley and Dr Nichola Street (Lecturers in Psychology) recently attended the British Psychological Society’s flagship event, the Annual Conference, in Nottingham in April 2016.

The conference encompassed a diverse array of presentations that spanned the whole of psychology, alongside Keynote presentations from scholars such as Professor Gail Kinman and Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes (now Vice President of the BPS).

The conference also provided the opportunity for scholars to present their work in different innovated formats. One format was Haiku Desk style, where Dr Street presented a talk entitled ‘When Art and Psychology Collide’.  A Haiku Desk limits the text on each slide to only a few words, then “deals a desk” of appropriate images to marry up to the text.  The presenter then is given 3 minutes, followed by 2 minutes of questions. Dr Street said: “ I chose to submit into this category as my research is focused on the power of imagery. It was exciting having a different brief for a presentation focused on visual impact and I enjoyed the test of trying to compress my research background, aims and findings into 3 minutes. In practice it certainly was a difficult task to keep to time but I do enjoy the challenge of trying new methods to add novelty in scientific communication.”

Dr Nichola Street at the BPS Conference

Dr Jolley presented a slightly more traditional poster, which showcased research that aimed to test interventions designed to address anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. Dr Jolley said: “Presenting the poster was a great way to discuss my research with many different people – I received some great feedback, and was able to have more one-to-one conversations.  As the poster was being showcased all day, I tweeted the poster-board number and a photograph using the conference hash tag (#bpsconf), which may have then inspired delegates to attend in person”.

Dr Daniel Jolley and his poster presentation at the BPS Conference

Drs Jolley and Street also experienced the more typical oral presentations, with Powerpoint; however, one presenter also had the audience take part in a demonstration.  Anne-Marie Czajkowski (from the University of Leeds) talk was discussing ‘Mindfulness for Musicians’ where she asked people in the audience to take part in a short mindfulness activity.  Dr Jolley said: “Typically, talks do not include such an interactive component, so this was a new experience for us”.  Dr Street added: “It was certainly great to include such a demonstration during a more traditional talk, and definitely something I would love to consider using in my own presentations the future”.

You can see therefore that there are all manner of different styles to present your work – why don’t you give it a try?

Dr Daniel Jolley and Dr Nichola Street are both members of the Staffordshire Centre for Psychological Research (#StaffsPsyRes), a newly established research centre at Staffordshire University.

The Psychology Department at Staffordshire is a research-active group of academic psychologists with expertise in several key areas of psychology, including Health Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology and creative methodologies. The University offers a range of Postgraduate courses which provide further training in research skills, including:

• MSc Applied Research in Psychology
• MSc in Health Psychology (Details of upcoming Open Afternoons here)
• MSc Psychotherapeutic Counselling
• Professional Doctorate in Health Psychology
• Professional Doctorate in Clinical Psychology
• MPhil/PhD in Psychology

For more details about Postgraduate Study at Staffordshire University please visit  http://www.staffs.ac.uk/postgraduate/.

Interested in a Psychology degree? Find out more about our Undergraduate Psychology courses, and book yourself on an Open Day.