Written by Dr Nikki Street and Dr Erica Lucas Recently Psychologists from around the world gathered in Brighton to discuss, debate, and celebrate the impact of psychology on community and society in the European Congress of Psychology co-hosted by the … Continue reading →
Staffordshire University recently held the Learning and Teaching Festival (LTF [Monday 6 June to Friday 10 June 2022]). The festival provided an opportunity for the University community to share and develop innovative learning and teaching practices from across the University. The day consisted of a variety of different styles of talks (e.g. presentations, simulations, workshops, demonstrations, discussions, and 5-minute pecha kucha) across diverse topic areas. There were also opportunities for networking as people from across the University came together to share practice. The festival talks covered several key themes, including: Learning support; Co-creation between peers, staff, and students; Digital technology; Social mobility and resilience; Innovative pedagogies; Employment; and Addressing differential outcomes for students.
Several talks were provided by members of the Psychology department. Dr Dan Herron and MSc Foundations in Clinical Psychology student, Jack Beardmore, discussed experiences of using a world café to understand student feedback. Dr Jenny Taylor and Dr Nikki Street delivered an interactive session providing attendees with a taster of the mindfulness intervention they recently facilitated for Psychology students which was aimed at improving a range of outcomes including wellbeing, resilience and student experience.
Using a world café to gain a rich understanding of student feedback
By Dr Dan Herron & Jack Beardmore
When I (Dan) saw the abstract call for the LTF I thought my recent experiences of gaining rich feedback from students was an example of good practice which would be useful to share across the University. Jack and I wanted to provide an interactive demonstration of how I gained a deeper understanding of MSc student feedback (mid-course) using a world café technique.
Before jumping into my reflections of the workshop, it is important to reflect on the reasons for why I decided to collect this feedback and in this format. The main driving force was that the previous years end of course feedback did not provide the reasoning behind the student scores. For example, students identify on a scale from definitely agree to definitely disagree with written responses, where students can provide reasons, being optional. Therefore, from my experiences with world cafes, I thought this method would be ideal and provide rich insight, which would allow for informed changes to the course.
It is also important to understand a little bit about what world cafés are and how I applied them. How world cafés are utilised varies based on their purpose- for gaining student feedback, I had two one-hour world cafés (same time and same place but a week apart) because of the availability of students. As illustrated in Diagram 1, world cafés can consist of several tables, and on each table, there is a host who facilitates the discussion, and 4-5 participants. We had one question per round (all students, across all tables, discussed the same question at the same time) and there were seven rounds across the two sessions. After each round, students moved (as randomly as possible) to different tables.
A visual representation of World Café
Jack and I worked collaboratively to develop and deliver the workshop. I asked Jack to come along and provide his perspective (as a participant) of world cafés to gain student feedback. We had planned for it to be an interactive workshop, where the audience took part in a mini- world café, but due to the amount of people in the audience (less than needed) we decided to go to plan B and focus more on our experiences of the world café sessions. For different, but interlinked reasons, we both found usefulness in world cafes- for me, they helped to provide rich insight which was developed through collaborative discussion between students; for Jack, it provided the space and opportunity to dive deeper into their issues, share perspectives and give feedback as a community. We shared these views and experiences with the audience.
We had interesting and useful feedback about the content of the talk and suggestions of how it could be used beyond feedback (something I have previously done when teaching thematic analysis). I feel Jack’s perspective, as a participant, really added value to the talk.
Mindful Students: Mindfulness interventions to improve student outcomes
By Dr Jenny Taylor and Dr Nikki Street
This interactive workshop discussed the background research exploring how and why mindfulness interventions may have had a positive impact on student experience as well as providing a taster of a mindfulness intervention in the form of a guided meditation recently delivered to a small group of our undergraduate psychology students. The benefits of mindfulness are well known, particularly in terms of health and wellbeing. The general benefits of engaging in mindfulness for students in a learning context are also well documented but we know less about its impact on specific constructs such as resilience, perceived academic control, and sense of belonging. The research also is lacking more qualitative insight into the impact of mindfulness therefore our study looks at not only quantitative changes across an intervention but also explored students individual experiences in qualitative interviews to offer further understanding of the potential benefits that practice can have.
Both Nikki and Jenny are trained Mindfulness Now practitioners (a version of mindfulness that is approved by the British Psychological Society) and, as academics, are particularly interested in how mindfulness can help our students.
Nikki and Jenny were awarded funding from the Staffordshire Centre of Learning and Pedagogic practice (SCoLLP) to explore the impact of an 8-week mindfulness intervention on a range of student outcomes including wellbeing, resilience, belongingness, perceived academic control, and student experience. The weekly sessions involved Nikki and Jenny facilitating a small group of students to engage with mindfulness in a variety of different formats including meditation, activities, stories and poems, as well as providing space for personal enquiry and reflection. Students were also encouraged to engage in some mindfulness ‘homework’ each week in order to further enhance their practice.
To assess its impact, students were asked to complete a survey pre and post intervention as well as taking part in a follow up interview about their experiences. This data will be analysed in conjunction with data we collect from the additional roll out of the intervention. To date, feedback from the students has been overwhelmingly positive with one student commenting on their general enjoyment of the intervention:
“It was a commonplace thing that I’d be kind of bragging to whoever I was talking to that I get to take part in this study and kind of get to experience this new mindfulness way of living. I’ve really enjoyed it.”
student feedback
Another student commented specifically on how they felt the intervention had helped them during the examination period:
“I found that I was not relying on but turning to the teachings of mindfulness when I was a little overcome by the anxiety of that period and leading up to each of the exams…kind of resolving the anxiety that I was feeling rather than just brushing it off, I was able to actually manage and control the anxiety”
Student feedback
The workshop delivered for the LTF presented an overview of the project, our reflections so far, as well as a taster of some of the practices that we guide our students through. The workshop led to some interesting discussions around the potential use of mindfulness for students across different contexts and discussion around potential cross discipline applications.
The Department of Psychology at Staffordshire University is delighted to invite you to Psychology and Me, a fun and interactive evening where you will be given the opportunity to get hands-on with some of our state-of-the-art equipment used in our psychological research, as well as hear about the latest research findings from a variety of experts working in psychology.
This year’s Psychology and Me event includes a number of activities:
Psychology and Me: Listen
Have you ever wondered… why people fall for fake news? What do your children’s drawings really mean? Will seeing a future ‘you’ encourage a healthier lifestyle? A series of short expert talks will explore these and other fascinating questions.
Psychology and Me: Hands-on
Try your hand at learning how our equipment works such as how virtual reality can change our world, how we can know what you are thinking without asking and how we test your reaction skills in our driving simulator, amongst other fun demonstrations.
Psychology and Me: A chance to win
Having taken part in the hands-on activities, you have a chance to win some Love2Shop vouchers. Entry information and winners announced on the night.
How does psychology apply to you and your life? Come along and find out.
Could you live for a year or more in space? What challenges might you face living and working there? What would you miss about earth? These are the question we proposed to over 1500 attendees during the European Researchers Night at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in September 2018.
Psychologists from The Staffordshire Centre for Psychological Research at Staffordshire University attended the event where our aim was to introduce the guests to the physical environment in space and together discuss the challenges with space travel on people’s wellbeing. Drs Nichola Street, Gemma Hurst and Daniel Jolley, and Dina Grinstead and Darel Cookson were on hand during the night to discuss the Psychology of Space with guests.
The event was split into different parts. First, guests ‘travelled’ to the International Space Station (ISS) using Virtual Reality equipment to explore the living conditions of space travellers. We asked guests to consider what they would find most challenging living on the ISS for a year and what they might miss about earth during that time. The ISS that they explored can be termed an ICE environment; those environments which are Isolated, Confined and Extreme. Spending time in these types of environments is a psychological challenge. For those guests who were a little too young to use the Virtual Reality, they were able to view the space centre on a projected screen.Alongside the VR exploration, we asked what guests would miss the most if they had to live in space for a year. The responses from guests were heart-warming and clear patterns appeared: People would miss their Family, Friends, Pets, Food (they had tasted space food in another Staffordshire University run activity on the night) and nature. People talked about missing the space to walk the dog or the chance to change where you are.Next, guests entered a ‘psychology relief room’ in which they were exposed to natural imagery and sound. These nature interventions have been trailed in ICE environments as a way to dampen the potentially harmful effects of physical space with success. Evidence shows that even when direct access to nature is not possible (as it would not be in space) nature substitutes can go some way to reduce psychological harm.
While the ‘extreme’ aspect may be missing from many of our experiences on earth we can certainly think of many places that fit into the isolated and confined categories such as hospitals, prisons or even your home or work places. And like our space travellers pointed out, Nature exposure can go some way towards combatting the negative effects. The research of Drs Nikki Street & Gemma Hurst aims to shed light on the impact of physical environments on an individual’s thoughts, feelings and behaviour. To learn more about the exciting research from the department please visit The Staffordshire Centre for Psychological Research‘s website.
In the Department of Psychology we love a chance to showcase how psychology can impact you in your everyday life. We were delighted to welcome over 80 guests to the Science Centre on Wednesday 22nd March for our annual event, ‘Psychology and Me‘, which was organised this year by Dr Nichola Street and Dr Daniel Jolley, both Lecturers in Psychology.
‘Psychology and Me’ was an interactive evening showcasing the latest technology and research from Staffordshire University’s Department of Psychology. Guests attending enjoyed the evening of short expert talks on different aspects of Psychology, where we explored if watching television affects children’s creativity, what may affect our memory and how psychology can improve our health behaviour. Dr Daniel Jolley, co-organiser, also spoke about how psychology can help explain why we believe in conspiracy theories.
“Psychologists are learning more about why so many millions of people believe in conspiracy theories and what the potential consequences of conspiracy theories may be. We all know of at least one conspiracy theory, so it was great to showcase to the guests how psychology can help explain why so many people believe in them”
For all the demonstrations, visitors were able to learn the psychology that underpinned the activity, and how it could be applied to them in everyday life. Dr Nichola Street, Lecturer and co-organiser said:
“We were delighted to see each guest getting hands-on with the demonstrations. There was a real buzz around the Science Centre! If you were unable to join us, you can find plenty of photos and videos on Twitter via our #StaffsPsychMe hashtag”
‘Psychology and Me’ was only made possible with the support of many staff and students throughout the University. Judy David, Head of the Department of Psychology, led this thanks on the evening and has said:
“I’m very grateful to the large numbers of psychology staff and student helpers who were there throughout the evening demonstrating, chatting to visitors and representing their pride in Psychology at Staffordshire University. The feedback received from everyone was excellent and we are already looking forward to next year!”
We look forward to welcoming you to ‘Psychology and Me’ in 2018!
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 Reflecting Nature Exhibition, a collaboration between Dr Nichola Street (Staffordshire Centre for Psychological Research) and Mark Ware (Multimedia Artist), is currently on display in the Science Centre at Staffordshire University’s Stoke City Campus. The exhibition is open to the public, and has been extended until the end of November 2016.
Dr Nichola Street, Mark Ware, and collaborator Dr Gemma Hurst, are featured in the below interview detailing the project:
The Centre provides training for PhD students, Research Masters degrees, as well as Professional Doctorates in Clinical and Health Psychology (click here for more details). The Centre also provides bespoke training to private and public organisations, as well as expertise for consultancy research opportunities. For more details about the Centre, its research activities, events and consultancy, please visit our website (click here).
Reflecting Nature looks at whether beauty really is in the eye of the beholder as well as the impact that art can have on individual wellbeing. Visitors are invited to take part in scientific research investigating how we respond to artwork and different environments.
Dr Nikki Street, Dr Gemma Hurst, Sara and Mark Ware – members of the Reflecting Nature team
The artwork has been touring the UK at different locations since May 2016 and has been a great way to engage the public in research. We are excited for the project to come to it’s research home and show visitors the great research emerging from the Staffordshire Centre for Psychological Research.
The Reflecting Nature Artwork on display at Exeter Cathedral
The exhibition, which includes a series of prints and 3D banners, will be on display from 4th – 16th October 2016 in Staffordshire University’s Science Centre and is available for viewing by the public during normal business opening hours.
One of the images which form part of the Reflecting Nature artwork
Some of the activities in use at the Reflecting Nature tour
Mark, and Psychology Lecturers Dr Nikki Street and Dr Gemma Hurst, will also be giving the public an opportunity to engage with workshops associated with the exhibition. Visitors have the chance to get involved in activities using the equipment for exploring human responses including eye tracking, body movement tracking and tasks such as mirror drawing. In addition, Mark Ware is providing exciting photography workshops to enhance your photography skills. Workshops are currently scheduled for Saturday 15th October, drop along and see us in the Science Centre as part of the Big Biology Day with photograph workshops being held between 11:30-12:00 and 14:30-15:30. Contact nichola.street@staffs.ac.uk to book a place.
* The Reflecting Nature exhibition, supported using public funds by Arts Council England, is part of The Wavelength Project, an ongoing arts/science collaboration between Mark Ware and neuroscientists and psychologists at Brighton and Sussex Medical School and Staffordshire University.
The Centre provides training for PhD students, Research Masters degrees, as well as Professional Doctorates in Clinical and Health Psychology (click here for more details). The Centre also provides bespoke training to private and public organisations, as well as expertise for consultancy research opportunities. For more details about the Centre, its research activities, events and consultancy, please visit our website (click here).
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:
The School of Psychology, Sport & Exercise is pleased to welcome Dr Fiona Gillison (Senior Lecturer in Exercise & Health Psychology, University of Bath) who is giving the next Visiting Speaker Series talk on Thursday 7th April, 4pm, in the LT003 Lecture Theatre in the Ashley Building (Leek Road campus).
Fiona previously worked in a public engagement role with primary care teams, and as a stop smoking and weight management specialist in the NHS, and so has continued to take a very applied approach to her research. Fiona’s current focus is on applying psychological theory into practice, in investigating how we can better support people to improve their health behaviours in the prevention and reduction of obesity – whether at the individual, community or policy level. She is currently involved in a range of research studies including; an intervention to promote weight loss in people with high cardiovascular risk, work with school nurses, public health teams and health communication specialists to improve the positive impact of the National Child Measurement Programme, and a collaborative project to identify the important dynamic processes within groups that facilitate behaviour change.
All staff, students and members of the public are welcome to attend these free Visiting Speaker talks – join in our live tweeting from the talk using the #StaffsVSS event hashtag. We hope to see you there!
The Visiting Speaker seminars are a regular series of free talks hosted by the School of Psychology, Sport & Exercise. Psychologists from across the country are invited to speak at these events to share their research and discuss their findings with staff and students from Staffordshire University. The Visiting Speaker series is also open to anyone from the general public with an interest in psychological research.
The School of Psychology, Sport & Exercise is pleased to welcome Mark Ware (an award-winning multimedia artist and a Honorary Research Fellow at Brighton and Sussex Medical School) who is giving the Visiting Speaker Series talk with Dr Nichola Street on Thursday 10th March, 4pm, in the LT003 Lecture Theatre in the Ashley Building (Leek Road campus).
Mark will be speaking about his personal experience of a stroke, how this affected his art, and his recent Arts Council England supported collaborative art/science work with Dr Nikki Street (Lecturer in Psychology at Staffordshire University) – click on the below flyer for more details:
All staff, students and members of the public are welcome to attend these free Visiting Speaker talks – join in our live tweeting from the talk using the #StaffsVSS event hashtag. We hope to see you there!
The Visiting Speaker seminars are a regular series of free talks hosted by the School of Psychology, Sport & Exercise. Psychologists from across the country are invited to speak at these events to share their research and discuss their findings with staff and students from Staffordshire University. The Visiting Speaker series is also open to anyone from the general public with an interest in psychological research.
Psychology and Me will take place at Staffordshire University’s Science Centre, Leek Road, Stoke-on-Trent, on Wednesday 27th February 6 – 8:30 pm. Click here to view the location of the Science Centre on Staffordshire University’s Stoke-on-Trent campus. Tickets include free parking on site and refreshments.
Psychologists from The Staffordshire Centre for Psychological Research at Staffordshire University attended the event where our aim was to introduce the guests to the physical environment in space and together discuss the challenges with space travel on people’s wellbeing. Drs Nichola Street, Gemma Hurst and Daniel Jolley, and Dina Grinstead and Darel Cookson were on hand during the night to discuss the Psychology of Space with guests.
Alongside the VR exploration, we asked what guests would miss the most if they had to live in space for a year. The responses from guests were heart-warming and clear patterns appeared: People would miss their Family, Friends, Pets, Food (they had tasted space food in another Staffordshire University run activity on the night) and nature. People talked about missing the space to walk the dog or the chance to change where you are.
Next, guests entered a ‘psychology relief room’ in which they were exposed to natural imagery and sound. These nature interventions have been trailed in ICE environments as a way to dampen the potentially harmful effects of physical space with success. Evidence shows that even when direct access to nature is not possible (as it would not be in space) nature substitutes can go some way to reduce psychological harm.
While the ‘extreme’ aspect may be missing from many of our experiences on earth we can certainly think of many places that fit into the isolated and confined categories such as hospitals, prisons or even your home or work places. And like our space travellers pointed out, Nature exposure can go some way towards combatting the negative effects. The research of Drs Nikki Street & Gemma Hurst aims to shed light on the impact of physical environments on an individual’s thoughts, feelings and behaviour. To learn more about the exciting research from the department please visit The Staffordshire Centre for Psychological Research‘s website.
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.
in Psychology) recently attended the British Psychological Society’s flagship event, the Annual Conference, in Nottingham in April 2016.
Exercise is pleased to welcome Mark Ware (an award-winning multimedia artist and a Honorary Research Fellow at Brighton and Sussex Medical School) who is giving the Visiting Speaker Series talk with Dr Nichola Street on Thursday 10th March, 4pm
All staff, students and members of the public are welcome to attend these free Visiting Speaker talks – join in our live tweeting from the talk using the #StaffsVSS event hashtag. We hope to see you there!