Category Archives: News

Psychology Technicians from across the UK and Ireland descend on Staffordshire University for the 40th Annual ATSiP Conference

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The 3-day Association of Technical Staff in Psychology conference, hosted by Staffordshire University’s Technical Skills Specialists Sarah Higgins and Paul Gallimore, obtained record numbers of attendance and was well received by the delegates. There were a range of talks throughout the conference, ranging from gesture recognition using the Microsoft Kinect to using eye-tracking equipment and the evolving role of the Psychology Technician at universities.

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Paul and Sarah present ‘The Links between Essential Technical Skills and Core Teaching’, at the 2015 ATSiP Conference, Staffordshire University.

The delegates also had the opportunity to tour around the Psychology facilities within the Science Centre at Staffordshire University, which left many in admiration:

‘we’re very envious of your lovely building and your equipment… certainly something to aspire to’ – Julia Mackenzie, University of Hertfordshire.

‘the Staffs department is something to aspire to and a similar level of accessibility of the equipment to the students is something I hope to achieve in the near future’ – Oliver Clark, Manchester Metropolitan University.

‘You’ve a fine setup, there was a lot of us very jealous’ – Michelle Glasheen, Mary Immaculate College.

Delegates dined locally for their evening meals at the Rare Lounge Bar and Steakhouse and David’s Brassiere which included a visit to the Italian Gardens in the gorgeous sunshine!

ATSiP June 15 3 Group photo

Delegates at the 2015 ATSiP Conference held in Staffordshire University’s Science Centre

The hosts commented ‘the feedback we received from delegates was amazing, everyone was impressed with the laboratories and equipment we had to offer and how they were integrated within student learning’ – Paul Gallimore.

‘It has been a privilege to host the 40th annual conference. We are so grateful for the sharing of best practices and the valuable feedback in relation to the technical provision we currently provide’ – Sarah Higgins.

New research explores how officers conduct investigative interviews with children

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Dr Sarah Krähenbühl, Lecturer in Psychology and Forensic Psychology researcher at Staffordshire University, discusses her new research exploring the use of “ground rules” by police officers and social workers when interviewing children:

This study examined over 50 transcripts of investigative interviews conducted with children who were either witnesses to, or victims of, different forms of abuse. The particular focus was when, how and if ground rules were used by the interviewing officers (generally a Police Officer but a Social Worker may take this role) and then to establish the likely impact of this on the child’s understanding and the remainder of the interview.

Ground rules refer to explanations such as shutterstock_131453660 Resized‘say if you don’t know’, ‘tell me if I get something wrong’ and an agreement to tell the truth. The interviewing protocol (known as ‘Achieving Best Evidence’ 2011) states that ground rules should be included in all interviews with children. The study took a mixed methodological approach with numerical assessment of what ground rules were included, when this happened, were there any subsequent repetitions of the rules, and a qualitative approach as to the wording used and implications of this.

The results showed that there was a lack of consistency in ground rule implementation despite clear interviewing protocol guidance. Of greater concern was that when the ground rules were implemented the child’s understanding was not established and the relevance of the ground rules to the remainder of the interview was rarely established. So, this study has relevance not only to interviewing officers and legal professionals but also has implications in relation to assessments of child credibility when giving evidence.

Dr Krähenbühl’s study has recently been accepted for publication by Psychiatry, Psychology and Law and can be accessed via the journal’s website:

Dr Krähenbühl teaches on Staffordshire University’s Forensic Psychology degree – for more information about our degrees please visit the Forensic Psychology course page and the Psychology courses webpages.

Staffordshire University to host the Association of Technical Staff in Psychology (ATSiP) Conference in June 2015.

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June is nearly here! This month sees Psychology Technical Skills Specialists Sarah Higgins and Paul Gallimore gearing up in preparation as Staffordshire University plays host to the Association of Technical Staff in Psychology (ATSiP) three day annual conference (24th – 26th June).

ATSiP Logo

The conference will see over 60 delegates arriving from from Universities across the UK and Ireland as well as exhibitors and suppliers of specialist equipment in attendance.

Talks at the conference will include:

Links Between Delivery of Essential Technical Skills and Core Teaching – Paul Gallimore and Sarah Higgins (Staffordshire University)

Effectiveness of Audience Participation Software (Turning Point) – Prof David Clark-Carter (Staffordshire University)

The Unseen Technician – Andrew Barnes (University of Surrey)

Developing a Preschool Diagnostic Methodology for Dyslexia – Maria Shaw (Edinburgh Napier University)

There will also be several specialist talks focusing on the use of Eyetracking, EEG and Biopac equipment.

You can follow the events at the conference via the Staffordshire University Psychology twitter account (@StaffsPsych) and via the newly created Psychology Technician’s account (@StaffsPsyTech).

Join in the conversation using the conference’s twitter hashtag: #ATSiP2015

Does television affect young children’s creativity?

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New research at Staffordshire University aims to find out! Dr Sarah Rose, Lecturer in Developmental Psychology, is welcoming 60 children and their parents to the Psychology ‘Children’s lab’ on the third floor of the Science Centre during June and July. These children and their parents are contributing to new research on the immediate impact of watching television on children’s creativity.

When they arrive at the lab children are given an ‘unusual box’ to play with. The box has ledges of wood attached to it, loops and holes, and inside is a stairway. In order to test their creativity, the children are given unusual objects to use within the box. The different movements that the children make with the objects in the box, such as moving them up and down the stairs or balancing them on the shelves, are recorded and scored for creativity. Following this, the children either watch an old ‘slow-paced’ episode of Postman Pat from the 1990s, a recent more ‘fast-paced’ episode or are given books and jigsaws to read and play with.

The unusual box (SR)

The “Unusual Box”

To determine the effect of watching the TV episode, all the children are then set a number of action and movement tasks to complete, including exploring how many different ways they can get from one side of a room to another and get a paper cup into a bucket. Similar to the activity with the ‘unusual box’, the different movements are recorded and scored for creativity. The assessment of creativity is of course complex. In this study tasks requiring divergent thinking will be used, these will require children to move and behave in different ways. This is a particularly appropriate way to measure creativity in 3-year-old children who may or may not feel like talking to us when they visit the lab!

The Psychology Children’s lab now has a web presence (https://blogs.staffs.ac.uk/childrenslab/) and it is hoped that this project will be the first of many to take place in the lab. Sian Foulkes, a current level 6 student, is working as a research assistant to help Sarah to collect the data from the children and their parents. Student research assistants will also be involved in scoring the various tasks for creativity once they have received training. Sarah says ‘that it is exciting to be welcoming local children and their parents to the children’s lab to take part in ground breaking research and being able to provide hands on research experience for students is very important too’.

For more details about the Children Lab click here. Interested in Child Development? The Psychology department at Staffordshire University also runs a successful BPS-accredited BSc (Hons) Psychology & Child Development degree.

 

Greater health benefits when dieting with a partner

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The Sentinel Newspaper recently printed a story highlighting the benefits of dieting with a partner. Evidence suggests that when we diet or increase our exercise behaviour in partnership with someone else we are more likely to successfully lose weight.

Dr Amy Burton

Dieting is an important area of interest for Health Psychology and Dr Amy Burton (Senior Lecturer in Health Psychology) was contacted by the paper for comment. Dr Burton explained: “One theory that can help to explain the success of couples dieting together is Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behaviour which was developed in the 1980’s. This theory proposes that our intentions to engage in healthy behaviours (such as diet or exercise) are dependent on three factors: our attitudes towards the behaviour, our perceptions of the resources available to us for completing the behaviour, and how we think others around us are behaving or expecting us to behave. When we work with another person the importance of those around us becomes more salient meaning our attitudes towards diet and exercise will be more positive, we will perceive that we have support from those around us to continue with the behaviour, and we are more likely to follow through with our plans to diet or exercise to ensure we don’t disappoint our partner.

The full article was published in the Saturday Sentinel on 21st March 2015 and an online version of the piece is available here. Dr Amy Burton is a member of the Centre for Health Psychology at Staffordshire University (click here for more details).

Dr Amy Burton: Training Health Professionals in Pain Management

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AB Pain Management PictureIn January 2015 Dr Amy Burton (Senior Lecturer in Health Psychology) delivered a training session for pain management professionals in the Birmingham Community Healthcare (BCHC) Pain Team. The session covered an introduction to culturally competent communication and practical tools to help health care professionals to communicate more effectively with patients from different cultures.

One activity encouraged the attendees to practice the ‘teach-back’ technique involving delivering small chunks of information to the patient and then checking understanding before moving on to additional information. The health care professionals practiced through role play by explaining an everyday concept to a partner – practice examples included: the offside rule, how to bake a cake, and how to ride a motorbike!

The training was well received:

“One of the biggest clinical challenges facing the BCHC pain team is the provision of care to culturally diverse patients. The training delivered by Dr Amy Burton has helped to increase open-mindedness and cultural awareness, as well as enabling the Pain Team to develop its ability to communicate more meaningfully with people from minority backgrounds” (Dr Laura Chipchase, Specialist Health Psychologist in Pain)

The training was informed by Dr Burton’s recent review paper entitled “pain management programmes for non-English-speaking black and minority ethnic groups with long-term or chronic pain” published in Musculoskeletal Care. The health care professionals are now planning to incorporate techniques from the training within their pain management programmes illustrating the direct link between research conducted in the Centre for Health Psychology at Staffordshire University and real world health care practice.

StaffsPsych Student Blog: Mentoring GCSE Students

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Anthony Miller, a second year Sport & Exercise Psychology student at Staffordshire University, blogs on his experience working as a mentor with GCSE students:

An opportunity was advertised via the Psychology department’s Blackboard website to be a mentor at a high school in Stoke-on-Trent under the supervision of Penny Vincent. At first I was apprehensive, I had never done anything like this before! I plucked up the courage and realized how beneficial this could be for my professional development, so I decided to go for it!

I went to mentor some Year 11 students at Haywood Academy prior to the Easter break. Doing this really helped me realize what it takes to work in education, and how challenging it can be. For me, going into that situation blind (so to speak) really was difficult, but once the day was finished, I felt confident and competent. I gained the skills to help in a school setting and now I would not hesitate in doing more mentoring sessions.

A Miller Mentoring (March 2015)

Anthony mentoring Year 11 Haywood Academy students

What I actually did was indirectly help the students answer mock exam questions, by finding ways to help them get to an answer without directly feeding the answer to them. At first this was hard, especially without in-depth course knowledge. I also realized that each student is different, and adaptation to the needs of such students is key. Some are quiet, some are loud, and some just really struggle to listen, but this where experience comes in and I am glad I have started with this mentoring role now rather than later. The primary gain from doing this was the students realizing their potential, and learning through my guidance, making a genuine difference to their capabilities.

If you are interested in acting as a mentor please contact Penny Vincent at P.E.Vincent@staffs.ac.uk.

Keep up-to-date with regular student blogs and news via the Psychology Department’s blog and twitter feed.

Psychology Careers Fair 2015 – Improving students’ employability!

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Heather Semper, Senior Lecturer in Health Psychology & Employability and Careers Tutor for Psychology, reports on a successful Psychology Careers Fair:

Careers Fair (March 15)

A very busy fair!

The Psychology Department hosted a very successful annual careers fair on Monday 16th March 2015 in the Science Centre. A number of organisations attended the fair, including the British Psychological Society, the Samaritans, Think Ahead, Saltbox, In Mind, Challenge UK, and the Staffordshire University Careers team. Stalls were set out with information about careers, jobs and volunteering opportunities and postgraduate courses available at Staffordshire University.

Students had the opportunity to discuss their career options with the exhibitors, and collect some freebies at the same time. There were talks given by current postgraduate students studying Psychology related postgraduate courses at Staffordshire about their experiences in postgraduate study.

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Stalls at the Careers Fair

Students welcomed the chance to speak with current postgraduate students to get a real feel for what it is like to study at postgraduate level and enjoyed speaking with organisations about opportunities available to them.

The event had some really positive feedback from exhibitors who said that they were very impressed by our range of students and their enthusiasm for psychology related careers. The event was also well received by students who tweeted: “Found the careers fair really useful & informative today! Thank u team staffs!!!”.

Keep updated with the latest news and events from the Psychology department via the @StaffsPsych twitter feed!

Election Success! Staffordshire Psychology Student voted to the Staffs Students Union!

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Jaime-Lee Cunningham, a current Level 5 Single (Hons) Psychology student at Staffordshire University, was successful in her election as a Full Time Officer of the Staffordshire University Students’ Union with a Health and Sport ticket.JLC SU Office (March 2015)Jaime-Lee comments on her motivation for seeking election to the union and her hopes for her term in office:

“Unfortunately there are a lot of students not getting the full university experience and there are many different reasons for this. A big reason for me running for this role was to get students more involved in university life, and try to make it so there are no obstacles in a student’s way to getting the most out of the opportunities at university.

One way in which I hope to do this JLC SU Officer 2 (March 2015)is through reducing mental health stigma amongst students – mental health issues can be more common amongst students than many people realise. There is often a lot of pressure put on the individual to speak up about their difficulties, whereas more needs to be done to educate other students about mental health issues and ways in which they can help others, should, for example, one of their friends be struggling. This will hopefully make it much easier for an individual who is struggling to speak out and seek help.

Another change to help improve student involvement is through improving sports facilities and making access to rooms for training easier for clubs, societies and individual students. This would offer more opportunities for students to get involved in university life as often students find it difficult to fit their academic studies and their sports commitments into their timetable.

The biggest benefit for me would be to know I had helped other students get the most out of their time at university. If I was to hear that the reducing the stigma towards mental health campaign had improved someone’s university life that would be fantastic.”

The Staffordshire Psychology team would like to wish Jaime-Lee every success in her new Students’ Union role!

Second Annual Undergraduate Psychology Conference a success!

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Louise

Dr Louise Humphreys opening the Conference

The Psychology department at Staffordshire University held their annual conference for current final year students to present their research findings. The conference, held in the University’s Science Centre in March 2015, featured a series of talks by current students on their research projects and included an audience of psychology students and academic staff.

The conference offered current final year students valuable practice presenting their research, and also allowed first and second year psychology students to hear about some of the research conducted by their fellow students, something which will help with developing their ideas for their own final year projects. It was great to hear our current final year students provide some valuable feedback to other students about how to manage their own projects in the future. Further details of the talks given at the conference are below:

Emily Inwards: Attitudes towards asexuality and bisexuality in young adults

Emily

Emily Inwards

Emily started the conference with a great talk about her research exploring young adults’ attitudes towards two sexualities: asexuality and bisexuality.

Emily’s talk highlighted the subjective nature of these sexualities and presented her work in a very engaging and professional manner!

 

Tom Barker: Where do people look when they are telling lies?

Tom

Tom Barker

Tom gave an overview of his research in progress which is using the Psychology Department’s eye-tracking equipment to get a better understanding of individuals’ eye movements when they are lying.

Dr Louise Humphreys, Tom’s project supervisor, commented “I have been impressed with Tom throughout the whole supervision process. He is very enthusiastic about his project and this came across in his presentation. Tom is a very engaging speaker and I believe he will be successful in achieving his future aspiration of becoming a University Lecturer.”

Kizzy Moss: Experiences and perceptions of having a brother or sister with Down’s Syndrome

Kizzy

Kizzy Moss

Kizzy presented her interview project exploring the experiences of individuals with a sibling with Down ’s syndrome. Past research has focussed on parents’ perceptions whilst the perspectives of siblings have been overlooked. Kizzy used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to identify a number of key themes in relation to her participants’ experiences and included issues about children taking on high levels of responsibility and mothering roles for their siblings and a need for greater acknowledgement of the types of support needed by this group.

Dr Amy Burton, Kizzy’s project supervisor, commented: “Kizzy has been a great student to supervise, she is passionate about this area of research and this enthusiasm showed in the quality of Kizzy’s presentation at the conference”.

Cheryl Hyden: Perceived barriers and facilitators to accessing university counselling by university students

Cheryl

Cheryl Hyden

Cheryl presented some very interesting findings from an interview study conducted with students who had accessed on-campus counselling facilities at the university. One of the novel themes Cheryl found in her interview was the role of “self-barriers” in seeking counselling support. Cheryl’s research has particular implications for counselling research and practice, particularly in understanding the reasons why some students are not accessing counselling support when they are experiencing mental health difficulties.

Cheryl commented that “taking part in the psychology undergraduate conference really helped me focus my project write up and really helped me understand my research. The morning of the conference was very nerve wracking, but I enjoyed every minute of the presentation and my confidence grew as time went on. I seriously would recommend future third year students to take part in the conference, it looks good on your CV and give you vital practice in presentations! Also you can show off your research!.”

Dr Rob Dempsey, Cheryl’s project supervisor, commented: “I was very proud of Cheryl and I thought she did a great job in presenting her research at the conference. Cheryl has been a brilliant project student and has shown a massive amount of enthusiasm in her project work. Cheryl has produced what I feel is a very strong project which has clear applications to counselling practice and improving student well-being”.

Helen Jones: Visual processing in those with a fear of spiders

Helen presented her quantitative project on the visual processing of those with and without a fear of spiders. Helen based her study on a recent journal article that showed that participants with a phobia of spiders tended to overestimate the size of a spider that they previously observed. It was suggested in this article that the study should be replicated using a non-clinical sample, which is what Helen’s project did. Although Helen had not yet analysed her data it was predicted that the results would replicate previous findings (that spider fear results in an overestimation of spider size) in a non-clinical sample.

Helen

Helen Jones

Dr Louise Humphreys, Helen’s project supervisor, commented “Helen’s project is very interesting and she did a fantastic job of presenting her research. I was particularly impressed of her awareness of some of the methodological difficulties that can occur when conducting research. Helen was very confident throughout her presentation and the talk was very engaging.”

 

Lauren Crilly: Perceptions of anorexia nervosa

Lauren

Lauren Crilly

Lauren presented her in-progress discourse analysis of how individuals with anorexia nervosa, one of a number of clinically recognised eating disorders, talk about their issues with food.

Lauren’s research took a particularly novel approach and analysed blog posts written by people with anorexia as they discussed their own condition and issues with food.

 

Aimee Page: Everyday life for adults with enteral feeding

Amiee

Amiee Page

Amiee presented her qualitative investigation of the experiences of people living with an enteral feeding tube. Amiee’s work involved collecting interview and diary data from her participants and analysing this using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Amiee’s themes included issues relating to the value and danger of online information and support for this group. Her theme entitled “My choice or no choice” highlighted the challenging decisions people with enteral feeding need to make.

Dr Amy Burton, Amiee’s project supervisor, commented: “Amiee did a fantastic job presenting her work on the experiences of people living with an enteral feeding tube. Amiee’s project has resulted in some important learning points for health care practitioners and patients in an area that has attracted little research attention in the past. Amiee’s and the other presentations were fantastic and show how Level 6 Projects are a great opportunity to be original and create new and exciting knowledge in psychology!”

A very enjoyable conference – well done to all our presenters!

Dr Louise Humphreys, Level 6 Tutor and Conference Organiser, commented “I thoroughly enjoyed the student conference. I was very impressed with the students’ presentation skills and it was lovely to see how passionate they all are about their research. It was great to see such a range of topics and I feel that the students who attended will have gained some great ideas for their own third year projects”.

Judy David, Academic Group Leader for Psychology, commented: “The student conference was superb. The speakers were professional and confident and they did a fantastic job in explaining their project work.  Without exception they delivered interesting and inspiring talks, and the passion they feel for their own research was clearly evident.  I feel sure the students in the audience had lots of ideas for their own future projects, and the whole event left me feeling very proud of our great students.”

Well done to all our presenters!

For more details about the Courses in Psychology offered at Staffordshire University please click here.