Tag Archives: Louise Humphreys

100% PTES Student Satisfaction on Staffordshire University’s MSc Psychology Conversion Course!

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According to the Post Graduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) 2018 results, the first cohort of students who completed the MSc Psychology Conversion course were 100% satisfied with the overall quality of their course. The Higher Education Academy’s annual Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) is the only sector-wide survey to gain insight from taught postgraduate students about their learning and teaching experiences.

Dr. Louise Humphreys, Course Leader for the MSc Psychology conversion degree, comments:

“This is fantastic news and I am delighted that students were highly satisfied with the course. These students started the course with little or no knowledge of Psychology, and it was great to see the students’ progress throughout the year. In addition, 83% of the students achieved a Merit or Distinction for their degree, which is fantastic. Our team of academic staff work very hard to ensure that students receive an excellent experience here at Staffordshire University, and we are extremely pleased with the success of the course in its first year.  The team are currently continuing this hard work to ensure that the second cohort get the very best out of the course and receive a stimulating and rewarding experience.”

The MSc Psychology conversion course is designed for students who wish to pursue a career in Psychology, but do not have a British Psychological Society (BPS) accredited undergraduate degree. The course allows students to gain Graduate Basis for Chartership (GBC). This is a means by which the BPS ensures that those working towards Chartered Status have studied Psychology at the appropriate breadth and standard to equip them for postgraduate training. Upon completing the course students will have covered all the core areas of Psychology defined by the BPS. Graduates from this course can go on to apply for BPS accredited professional psychology training courses (such as Clinical, Health, Forensic, and Educational Psychology, amongst others) and eventual achievement of Chartered Status.

The Department of Psychology at Staffordshire University offers a range of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Psychology at the University’s £30 million Science Centre in Stoke-on-Trent. The department is home to the Staffordshire Centre for Psychological Research, a large and active group of psychologists, PhD students and researchers conducting work into a variety of psychological disciplines and topic areas.

Interested in a Psychology degree? Come to an Open Day – for further details and to book your place at an open day please click here.

For more information about the Psychology degrees on offer at Staffordshire University please visit the below pages:

New MSc Psychology Conversion Course Starting in September 2017

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Dr Louise Humphreys (Lecturer in Psychology & Course Leader, MSc Psychology Conversion course) blogs about a new Masters award for students with a non-Psychology degree to gain the Graduate Basis for Chartership:

I am pleased to announce that from September 2017 we are offering an exciting new MSc Psychology course, designed for students who are considering a change in direction and who wish to pursue a career in psychology. The course allows graduates with an honours degree in any discipline to ‘convert’ this to an accredited psychology degree in order to then pursue further training or study in psychology at a postgraduate level. Entry to professional applied psychology training courses (including our own MSc Health Psychology and Doctorate in Clinical Psychology), and eventual achievement of Chartered Status, requires applicants to have the Graduate Basis for Chartership (GBC). This is a means by which the British Psychological Society (BPS) ensures that those working towards Chartered Status have studied psychology at the appropriate breadth and standard to equip them for postgraduate training.

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The MSc Psychology is designed to cover core areas of psychology as defined by BPS criteria associated with, and equivalent to, their Qualifying Examination, i.e. research design and methodology, practical work, cognitive psychology, biological bases of behaviour, developmental psychology, social psychology, personality and intelligence.

Unlike a number of alternative conversion courses, the MSc is completed in one academic year, running from September with the final piece of work, the dissertation, being submitted the following July, enabling graduates to apply for further postgraduate study, or employment in the September following enrolment. Additionally students have the choice of undertaking one (Level 6) option module, allowing them to learn more about a specialist area within psychology, as well as the core GBC content. Students on the course will be taught at our Stoke City Campus, home to our £30 million Science Centre, which can be located only a minute’s walk from Stoke-on-Trent Rail Station.

For more information about this exciting conversion course please visit our MSc Psychology Course Profile.

Find out about our range of postgraduate courses at our upcoming Postgraduate Open Event, Wednesday 24th May, 4-7pm – register for the event here.

The Department of Psychology at Staffordshire University offers a range of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Psychology at the University’s £30 million Science Centre in Stoke-on-Trent.

Interested in a Psychology degree? Come to an Open Day – for further details, and to book your place at an open day, please visit: http://www.staffs.ac.uk/openyourmind/

For more information about the Psychology degrees on offer at Staffordshire University please visit the below pages:

Fourth Annual Staffs Psychology Student Conference held in March 2017

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Dr Louise Humphreys (Lecturer in Psychology & Level 6 Tutor) blogs about the Fourth Annual Psychology Student Conference held at Staffordshire University in March 2017, featuring talks by our current final year students on their Final Year Research Projects:

This year’s Psychology Student Conference was a huge success and an event that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was lovely to hear about all of the work the students had conducted over this last year. I was very impressed with the quality of the presentations (oral and posters), and the students’ enthusiasm for their work. The level 4 and 5 students that attended found it useful and inspired them for their final year.

Many congratulations to our Prize Winners, Emma Manchester (Best Talk) and Jade Martin (Best Poster), as well as to all our presenters who did a great job presenting their research! Tweets from this year’s conference can be found via #StaffsPsyConf.

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Comments from presenters

“The experience of presenting in front of my peers and lecturers was scary, thrilling, exciting and energising. Having people feedback to me afterwards and show interest in what I was doing has been such a huge confidence boost and it’s an experience I’ll never forget. I would definitely encourage anyone doing a final year project to take the time to present at the conference and I’d say to all other students that it really interesting, informative and great fun to attend. I also want to say a huge thank you to all the lecturers that attended and worked on pulling the conference together on top of all the other work you already have. It’s been such a valuable experience for me and I’m so grateful for the opportunity and support I’ve received. It really makes all the difference.”

Emma Manchester (BSc Psychology & Child Development Student)

“Being a part of the Psychology conference really sums up an amazing journey and how far I have progressed at Staffordshire University. The Psychology conference was one of the highlights of my degree. I was able to share my project with students and lecturers and never felt more accomplished than I did then. When I was in Level 5 I came to the psychology conference and it was great even helped me plan my own project and then to take part at Level 6 was just awesome!”

Steph Slade (L6 BSc Psychology Student)

“Presenting my project also gave me a boost of confidence and motivation after hearing people’s feedback and the general interest in my research. Presenting as a poster was also a great way to interact with people more one-on-one, and is particularly good for people who, like me, get extremely nervous in front of large crowds.”

Jade Martin (L6 BSc Psychology & Criminology Student)

“I really enjoyed the conference. I felt like it gave me the opportunity to use and improve on my presenting skills as well as giving me the confidence and experience to be able to present at other future events.”

Asmah Ahmed (L6 BSc Psychology & Counselling Student)

Comments from level 5 students attending the conference:

“I really enjoyed the conference and found it really interesting. It will definitely be something that I will recommend to my friends, and will myself aspire towards next year”

Ruth Pettitt (L5 BSc Psychology & Child Development Student)

“The conference was really interesting and I’m glad I was able to make it! It was also nice to see the professional relationships that have formed between the final years and staff through working together! Overall it was very useful and enjoyable.”

Sophie Potts (L5 BSc Psychology & Criminology Student)

The psychology conference was really useful to attend; it gives good insight into the vast topic areas you can do for your own project. Even if there isn’t a topic area of your choice, it is still helpful as it shows just what needs to be included and everyone broke each section down – which is really handy… plus the free cake is always a bonus!

Zoe Collins (L5 BSc Psychology & Child Development Student)

 

Staffs-Uni-Hi-Res_45-1024x683The Department of Psychology at Staffordshire University offers a range of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Psychology at the University’s £30 million Science Centre in Stoke-on-Trent.

Interested in a Psychology degree? Come to an Open Day – for further details, and to book your place at an open day, please visit: http://www.staffs.ac.uk/openyourmind/

For more information about the undergraduate Psychology degrees on offer at Staffordshire University please visit the course profiles below:

The Third Annual Staffordshire Psychology Student Conference a Great Success!

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Dr Robert Dempsey and Dr Louise Humphreys, co-organisers of this year’s Psychology Student Conference, report on a very successful event featuring a range of talks by current third year students about their final year research projects:

The Psychology Department at Staffordshire University were pleased to host the Third Annual Psychology Student Conference in March 2016. The Conference featured a range of talks and poster presentations by current Final Year Psychology Students and was well attended by current first, second and third year students, postgraduate research students, academic staff and invited guests from the University including Professor Allan Howells, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research, Enterprise & External Affairs).

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The students presented research using a variety of psychological methodologies and included presentations on diverse topics such as “Experiences of positive body image in women with a BMI above 25“, “The effects of cooperative gaming vs competitive gaming on spontaneous helping behaviour“, “The Effect of Fact vs. Myth-Based Interventions on Mental Health-Related Stigmatising Attitudes”, and “The effects of physical activity and hypnosis on physiological stress response and psychomotor performance”.

All our students did a fantastic job of presenting their research and presented in a confident, professional and engaging manner.

Student Awards Ceremony

The Conference was also followed by a Student Awards Ceremony where we acknowledged the contributions of our student presenters and also gave out prizes for Best Performance at each level of study, plus two student-nominated awards for Best Teamwork and Unsung Student (recognising a student who makes a valuable contribution to student life at Staffordshire). Professor Allan Howells, Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University presented the awards and raised the students for their hard-work and their confidence in presenting their research in front of a large audience.

Staff attending the conference also voted for the Best Student Talk and Best Student Poster Presentation. We were extremely impressed with the overall quality of the students’ presentations and the hard work they had obviously placed into their final year research project. The two winners of the Best Talk and Poster prizes were:

  • Kondwa Thawethe won the Best Poster Prize for her poster titled: The effect of music listening on cold pressor pain perception and tolerance.
  • Paige Johns won the Best Talk for her oral presentation titled: Effect of different presentation modes and levels of negative arousal on an individual’s susceptibility to developing false memories.

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Dr Louise Humphreys, Level 6 Psychology Tutor and conference co-organiser, said “the conference was fantastic event and was very much enjoyed by all who attended. The presentations covered such a range of topics and the students were very enthusiastic about their research – I really enjoyed hearing about the work that they had done. I felt very proud to be part of the event. It was also great to see students from various years receive awards – to see their hard work and achievements being recognised.”

Dr Robert Dempsey, conference co-organiser and Award Leader for the BSc Psychology degree, commented: “I thought the conference was a great showcase for our students’ final year research projects and that our students did a fantastic job of presenting their work to an audience of their peers and staff. I was very impressed by the quality of the students’ talks and poster presentations and, like many who attended the event, I really enjoyed the conference and enjoyed hearing about great research being produced by our students“.

The School of Psychology, Sport and Exercise at Staffordshire University is a leading School in the UK for Psychology degrees and is situated in the heart of England.  We produce internationally recognized research which is driving knowledge in this area forward and we work with a variety of healthcare providers, charities, international sports teams and private sector organisations.

For more information or details of the wide range of Psychology degrees on offer at Staffordshire University please visit our website and our courses page.

Research Digest: New Research by Staffordshire’s Psychologists Presented at Conferences

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The beginning of September can be a particularly busy time for academics. Not only are academic staff busy preparing for the new teaching semester, we are also busy conducting our own research and presenting this work at conferences across the UK and beyond! Here are some updates on recent conference presentations featuring new research conducted by academic staff from Staffordshire University’s Department of Psychology:

Developmental Psychology: Children’s Creative Intentions in Drawing

The Annual British Psychological Society Developmental Section Conference was held in Manchester this year. This conference is an opportunity for researchers (from students to Professor level) to hear about new research and ideas in Developmental Psychology. It also a great opportunity to catch up with likeminded researchers, many of whom become friends over the years, and attend social events, including the conference Gala Dinner.

SR & RJ Oct 15

Dr Sarah Rose & Dr Richard Jolley

This year two of our Developmental Psychology Team, Dr Richard Jolley and Dr Sarah Rose, attended the conference and presented work on children’s creative intentions in drawing. This is a new area of research as although we know an increasing amount about how children’s drawing skills develop we know very little about where they actually get their ideas about what to draw from. Sarah and Richard presented qualitative research suggesting that children are inspired by a wide range of sources when deciding what to draw, including their immediate surroundings, recent experiences, memories, imagination and motivation to express their thoughts and emotions.

BPS West Midlands Conference: Health Psychology, Keynotes, Social Norms & Brand Recognition!

Various members of staff and students, including many from Staffordshire’s Centre for Health Psychology, attended the British Psychological Society’s West Midlands Branch Conference held in Coventry in early September. The conference was an opportunity for students (both undergraduate and postgraduate), early career researchers and academic researchers to present their own research and hear about the latest psychological research being conducted in the West Midlands region.

Professor Karen Rodham, Keynote Talk

Professor Karen Rodham, Keynote Talk

Professor Karen Rodham, Professor of Health Psychology at Staffordshire University and current Chair of the BPS Division of Health Psychology, gave an engaging and insightful keynote talk about her practice and research working to better understand how people cope with chronic health conditions such as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. Karen discussed her background in Health Psychology, her practice work and ongoing projects into how people cope with and manage chronic pain, including some interesting new research into how individuals represent chronic pain through drawings or portraits.

Oct 15 Dempsey Poster

Dr Rob Dempsey’s poster presented at the BPS WM Conference

Other presenters from Staffordshire University included Dr Rob Dempsey who presented findings from the recent European Commission-funded SNIPE (“Social Norms Intervention for Polydrug usE in university students“) study, included recent work demonstrating that European students have similar overestimations of their peers’ cannabis use behaviours as found in North America. This study is part of an ongoing series of projects conducted by Rob and several Masters in Health Psychology students investigating the role of misperceptions of peer norms (attitudes and behaviours) in health-related behaviours, such as help seeking for various health issues, substance use behaviours, and self-screening behaviours for cancer (e.g. testicular self-examination).

Oct15 JPB Poster

Jenny’s poster

Also presenting data was Jenny Parfitt-Bowman, a PhD student working on a cognitive psychology research project into branding and consumer behaviour using eye-tracking equipment under the supervision of Dr Louise Humphreys and Dr Emily Buckley. Jenny’s research is investigating the processing of brand information when certain features of the product packaging (e.g. location) is manipulated.

 

 

BPS Cognitive Section Conference: Product Branding & Facial Recognition

Dr Louise Humphreys, and PhD student Jenny Parfitt-Bowman, also presented their research at the Annual British Psychological Society Cognitive Section Conference which was held in Kent. Their presentations were on the topic of product branding. In particular, Louise’s presentation discussed the role of automatic and voluntary processes in locating and recognising a branded product, and Jenny’s presentation considered the impact of brand manipulation on visual attention disruption and accurate product recognition (see below for pictures).

Oct 15 JPB Kent 1Oct 15 JPB Kent 2

Also attending the BPS Cognitive Section Conference was Dr Andrew Edmonds, who has posted his own report on new developments in facial recognition research as discussed at the conference (click here to read Andrew’s blog post).

Academic staff at Staffordshire University’s Psychology Department have a wide range of research interests which directly informs their teaching of undergraduate and postgraduate students. The department is home to two centres of research excellence: the Centre for Psychological Research and the Centre for Health Psychology.

For more information about courses offered by the department please click here, including information about our BPS accredited Stage 1 Health Psychology Masters, Stage 2 Health Psychology Professional Doctorate, as well as our new MSc/MA by Research and established MPhil/PhD programmes.

Fully Funded PhDs in Psychology at Staffordshire University!

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The Department of Psychology at Staffordshire University are pleased to be offering four fully funded PhD Studentships. These studentships will involve conducting a major research project (see below for details) as well as some light teaching duties.

Staffordshire University's £30 million Science Centre, home of the Psychology Department

Staffordshire University’s £30 million Science Centre, home of the Psychology Department

The studentships include a fee waiver, a tax-free stipend of £14,057, and six hours per week of teaching duties.

Interested parties are recommended to contact the respective Principal Supervisors for further details about their studentship. Further details about the application process for these PhD studentships is available here.

Please note that the closing date for applications is Monday 14th September 2015.

1. The design, development and evaluation of a diabetes prevention programme

Principal Supervisor: Dr Rachel Povey (email R.Povey@staffs.ac.uk).

Diabetes is a significant health issue within the UK, with over 3 million diagnosed and an estimated 590,000 as yet undiagnosed with Type 2 diabetes (Diabetes UK, 2015), costing the NHS approximately £10 billion per year. As Type 2 diabetes can be preventable, the NHS, Public Health England and Diabetes UK have recently launched a national Diabetes Prevention Programme, which will be piloted in seven sites around the UK.   The proposed PhD studentship has been developed through ongoing collaboration between PSE researchers and Public Health England (PHE). It will be supervised by Dr Rachel Povey, Dr Chris Gidlow and Dr Naomi Ellis and will involve the development, support and evaluation of aspects of the Diabetes Prevention Programme. Although this will be driven, in part, by the needs of PHE, the first months will be spent defining the PhD based on the available opportunities, in addition to the student’s own ideas, experience and expertise

Supervisory Team: Dr Rachel Povey, Dr Chris Gidlow & Dr Naomi Ellis.

2. Applying the social norms approach to improve dietary behaviours amongst high school students

Principal Supervisor: Dr Robert Dempsey (email Robert.Dempsey@staffs.ac.uk)

Rates of obesity and the consumption of unhealthy, “junk”, foods are rising amongst young adolescents. This PhD project will involve the development and evaluation of a social norms-informed intervention to promote healthy eating amongst high school children. The intervention will be based on the Social Norms Approach, an intervention strategy used to elicit positive behaviour and attitudinal change by challenging commonly held misperceptions of peer behaviours and attitudes. Social norms interventions have been primarily conducted in the USA and have focused on reducing substance use by university students, with few studies investigating the presence of normative misperceptions of healthy eating amongst young adolescents and whether these misperceptions can be challenged via normative feedback.

Aims:

  • Conduct a systematic literature review of existing studies.
  • Develop a social norms-informed intervention which can be used in-class (using a cluster randomised controlled design) with input from children from the intervention site.
  • Investigate the extent of normative misperceptions of peer healthy eating behaviours and attitudes amongst high school students.
  • Conduct a small-scale study (a cluster randomised controlled trial) to investigate whether the social norms intervention has a significant impact on normative misperceptions and healthy eating behaviours and attitudes.
  • Evaluate the effectiveness and acceptability of the intervention (using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies).

The successful candidate will be expected to make an original contribution to the design of the project and be capable of working independently. This is an exciting project which is ideally suited for a bright, motivated and enthusiastic graduate with interests in health psychology, behaviour change and in evaluating the Social Norms Approach.

Supervisory Team: Dr Robert Dempsey, Dr Rachel Povey, & Prof Tony Stewart.

3. The role of attention and negative emotion in the production of false memories

Principal Supervisor: Dr. Louise Humphreys (email L.Humphreys@staffs.ac.uk)

Research suggests that memory is enhanced for emotionally negative events (Humphreys, Underwood, & Chapman, 2010), yet negative emotion can lead to heightened susceptibility to false memory (Porter et al., 2010). Whilst research has examined the role of attention in emotional memory (typically results show that emotional stimuli capture more attention than neutral stimuli and are preferentially attended to despite other task demands), few studies have addressed what role attention plays in emotional false memories. Van Damme and Smets (2013) is one of only a few studies that have examined this. They found that negative valence inhibited central false information but increased peripheral false information, suggesting that attention is drawn to emotionally arousing features (with fewer resources available for processing peripheral details). Based on these findings a measure of attention should show differences in attention allocation between central and peripheral details. However, to our knowledge no research has directly measured the role of attention in false memory production.

The role of attention in emotional false memory will be examined by 1) manipulating attention at study, and 2) measuring attention using eye-tracking methodology. This research has important implications for the courts, where false memories are a perennial problem. Presenters of fact (e.g., barristers, solicitors) as well as triers of fact (e.g., judges, jurors) need to become aware of factors that can influence people’s susceptibility to false memories. This research aims to examine attention to emotionally negative events, and how this impacts on people’s susceptibility to false memories.

Supervisory Team: Dr Louise Humphreys & Dr Sarah Krähenbühl

4. Portraits of Pain: The use of pain drawings to meaningfully communicate pain experiences

Principal Supervisor: Professor Karen Rodham (email: Karen.Rodham@staffs.ac.uk)

There is evidence that pain drawings may be a method by which people in pain can meaningfully communicate, understand and potentially alter their pain experiences. This study follows a protocol established and tested by Loduca and colleagues (2014) in Brazil, which incorporates pain portraits into the rehabilitation process. Understanding more about a person’s experience of pain will facilitate the development of more individualised and patient-centred treatment plans.

We are currently completing a feasibility study exploring how best to incorporate the Pain Portrait process into a UK NHS-based pain management programme. The PhD builds on this feasibility study.

Aim: To explore whether replicating and implementing the pain portrait process in clinic in the UK can:

  • help patients communicate and cope better with their pain;
  • help staff understand more about their patients’ pain experience
  • improve patient outcomes
  • provide insight into cultural (UK-Brazil) differences in pain experiences

Supervisory Team: Prof Karen Rodham, Dr Amy Burton and Prof Tony Stewart.

Further details about our courses in Psychology can be found here. Please click on the following links for further details of Staffordshire University’s research centres in Psychology, including our Centre for Health Psychology and Centre for Psychological Research.

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.