Psychology News Autumn 2008

Both Undergraduate and Postgraduate Psychology had a highly successful 5 year review and revalidation events recently.  All courses were subject to a full internal and external review, and although the offical reports are not yet available, reviewers found much to commend and both events were extremely positive.  Full details will be circulated as soon as the official reports are received.

Psychology recently had a successful round of appointments, and is looking forward to welcoming four new teaching staff early in the new year.  More details will follow in the next edition

Dr Helena Priest has been appointed consultant/facilitator for the project ‘Diversity in the Psychology Curriculum at Keele University; A collaborative action research project’ Funded by HEA Psychology Network & Keele Teaching Innovation Scheme.

In October Dr Ceri Parsons did an interview for BBC Essex on friendships.

Julie Hulme presented a paper called “Maximising the effectiveness of feedback for undergraduate psychology students” at the Psychology Learning and Teaching conference at the University of Bath 1-3 July.  The contents of the paper have been submitted for publication, co-authored with Mark Forshaw, in the Psychology Learning and Teaching journal.

Dr Erica Lucas attended the 6th International Conference on Thinking held in Venice in August. Dr Erica Lucas and Dr Linden Ball presented a poster called  Suppressed Q-card selections in Wason’s four-card problem: Eye-tracking evidence for a dual process account.

Professor Helen Dent, Dr Helena Priest and Dr Christine Blincoe presented a poster on Innovative methodology in the delivery and evaluation of inter-professional education at the Division of Clinical Psychology Annual Conference 2008, 11-12 December, Congress Centre, London along with Dr Paula Roberts & Ms Christine Armstrong (School of Nursing and Midwifery, Keele University).

Rachel Povey and David Clark-Carter went to the joint Annual Conference of the European Health Psychology Society and BPS's Division of Health Psychology at which they presented a poster: Povey, R. & Clark-Carter, D. (2008) Diabetes and healthy eating: A systematic review of dietary interventions Joint Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society's Division of Health Psychology and the European Health Psychology Society, 9th – 12th September 2008, University of Bath.

Helen Jones will be presenting at a GTiCP (Group of Trainers in Clinical Psychology) conference - about our recent pilot of using 'Values Exchange' software for personal and professional issues teaching.
The ultimate purpose of the 'Values Exchange' is to promote deliberative democracy, which is a process in which participants review evidence, learn more about the issues, learn from each other, debate with each other and eventually create new questions for debate. Staffordshire University is one of very few universities to have a licence for Values Exchange software and so has its own online site, allowing us more opportunity for tutor-led use of it. It seems well-suited to many areas of psychology teaching.