Department of Psychology & Human Development

1. Department of Psychology & Human Development Psychology teaching: staff and student perspectives on what works and why Report of a learning and teaching project funded by the Higher Education Academy Psychology Network Yvonne Reynolds, colleagues and students

2. Aims • to identify aspects of our psychology teaching that students experience as particularly beneficial to their learning • to encourage enhancement of these aspects of our teaching within the Department • to encourage collaborative planning, delivery and evaluation of teaching within the Department • to raise generally the profile of learning and teaching within the Department • to share outcomes of the project with student and tutor colleagues across the Faculty and institution and in the wider psychology teaching community

3. Background I Our psychology students are typically mid-career Home, EU and International education professionals who may • look to psychology of education to equip them better for their professional role • seek a career change to professional psychology practice • wish to further a personal interest in theory and research in psychology of education Psychology programmes included in this study were • Doctorate in Professional Educational, Child and Adolescent Psychology • MA/MSc Psychology of Education • MA/MSc Child Development • Graduate Diploma in Special & Inclusive Education (including psychological aspects)

4. Background II Recent course evaluations by Psychology Master’s students identified collaborative group activities teaching of concepts through practical examples students’ own experience as a teaching resource as beneficial to their learning. Courses are taught in 3-hour sessions We considered that ‘problem-based learning’ captured an approach that took its impetus from the students’ practitioner experience and knowledge, and their extensive professional experience of inter-personal communication.

5. Objectives of the research Students • to confirm aspects of teaching that were valued by current students and why • to invite students to contextualise and elaborate their views in relation to teaching they had experienced in the current year Tutors • to ascertain from experienced teaching staff which aspects of their teaching they thought best contributed to student learning and why. • to engage staff in joint planning and evaluation of innovative teaching sessions that incorporated an increased degree of • collaborative group activities • tutors’ relating theory & research to practical examples • the use of students’ own experience as a resource

6. Students Thirteen students were interviewed in focus groups near the start and again near the end of their programmes. In the period between the two sets of interviews, participating tutors implemented and jointly evaluated innovative taught sessions they had planned in pairs. In the early focus groups, we asked students to evaluate sessions near the start of their programmes. In the late groups, we asked for their final opinions, especially of the innovative sessions.

7. Focus group 1Doctorate in Professional Educational, Child and Adolescent Psychology Autumn term: 2 female home students; 1 male international student. Summer term: The same 3 students + an additional female home student Focus group 2 MA/MSc Psychology of Education Autumn term: 2 female home part-time students; 1 female international student. Summer term: The same female International student Focus group 3 MA/MSc Child Development Autumn term: 2 female home full-time students Summer term: The same 2 students + an additional female international student Focus group 4 Graduate Diploma in Special & Inclusive Education Autumn term: 1 female international student; 1 male international student Summer term: The same female international student + an additional student in the same category

8. Student interviews The interviewer was a postgraduate research student in the Department who was familiar with the programmes included in the study. In the early interviews, participants were asked to reflect on what had gone well (and not so well) for them in their recent taught sessions, and why. In the late interviews, they were asked to reflect on their whole course, and especially on the innovative sessions. The students’ views were audio-recorded and summarised. The reports were read independently by two departmental academics involved in the project, who allocated all the data to themes and categories. These were later discussed and agreed between them.

9. THEME: Pedagogy (student view) Categories 1. Flexible teaching approach aimed at achieving learner understanding 2.Being lectured to/talked at 3. Session atmosphere/personal attributes of lecturer/teaching style 4. Managing the lesson level or pace/managing differentiation for students at different levels/timing of session in module/administrative problems 5. Session structure/ variety of structure/presentation 6. Teaching of knowledge/skill new to student

10. THEME: Pedagogy (student view) – contd. Categories 7. Pre-session engagement/ thinking 8. Practicing in class a skill that has been specifically taught (e.g use of SPSS; critical reading) 9. Illustrative examples aimed at making the abstract comprehensible by bringing it into the real world 10. Application of ‘abstract’ theoretical knowledge to real world situations (reverse of 9) 11. Grounding of abstract in actual student experience

11. THEME: Pedagogy

12. Flexible teaching approach aimed at achieving learner understanding “He asked us what we wanted to bring to him and he helped us to understand better” “We actually voiced opinion, we need to know this, this, this and this, and we asked him to bring some examples and we could actually work through the examples” (Professional Doctorate) “Is it about me and I have got to get through the slides or whatever in the next 3 hours?Or is it really about - I am in the present with this group at this time and my job is to maximise their learning? I think there is a clear distinction between the two” (MA Psychology of Education) 2. Being lectured to/talked at “We go through all the slides and it’s just theory theory theory” (Grad Dip SIE) “The first few stats sessions we had, we sat up in room 739 and just listened. When you …are being talked at about statistics you will just fall asleep”(Professional Doctorate)

13. 3. Session atmosphere/personal attributes of lecturer/teaching style “She didn’t have a kind of set ‘this is where you talk amongst yourselves’ ... but the whole session was quite sort of interactive, she would just put a question out there and then really interact with the responses that were coming back” (MA Child D) “I’m a person who ... I don’t normally contribute... but with these sessions I found myself contributing and participating more because of the way I could understand, just from the beginning I could understand… I found myself enjoying the exercises because I could relate to them” (Grad Dip SIE) “I think some of them are more open to that than others… Some people say the right words like “any questions” but their body language, tone of voice, everything else belies that fact” (MA Psychology of Education)

14. 9. Illustrative examples aimed at making the abstract comprehensible by bringing it into the real world “...as you are reading about [autism] this character from the video who was a very sort of interesting personality… he is bringing it alive, he is bringing the reading alive (MA Child D) “They had no punch in them, they didn’t make you want to know more”Two sessions on processing language in the classroom had been particularly unhelpful because they were not given many examples.(Grad Dip SIE) “Systematic observation schedules, using these in a real life situation and the critiquing these and problem solving” The topic is a difficult one and can be abstract or meaningless to people who are not familiar with research, without the application of real life situations. (MA Child Development)

15. 10. Application of ‘abstract’ theoretical knowledge to real world situations (reverse of 9) “Learning to look at theories of learning and different approaches to interventions and evaluate their significance to the individual pupil through ongoing assessment” (Grad Dip SIE) “so for example a topic like emotional intelligence, is a good one, the lecturer came, he talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, but no opportunity for us to be able to apply it. But really if it is more theoretical than anything else... how can I use it in my teaching life?” (MA Psychology of Education) “I really like the skills labs ... but obviously I do appreciate you do sometimes, we have to be lectured in order to know what to put into practice”. (MA Child Development)

16. 13. Grounding of the abstract in the real They particularly appreciated the clinical practical element to the session. “It kind of reminded me why I was doing this course, because sometimes you get a bit caught up in the academia of it all” (MA Child Development) “It is always really interesting hearing what the lecturer thinks, because they are obviously a lot more experienced than us ... [but] they won’t tell us what they think... I really enjoy hearing about their careers and practical things that they have done” (MA Child Development) And what could be done is to start off the stats collecting that data, and then do the basic principles, but do the basic principles at the computer using your data. So it is much more real life, it’s there and you understand it because you collected it, and you don’t need the stats knowledge to collect the data in the first place (Professional Doctorate)

17. THEME: Group work (student view) 12. Sharing of views 13. Ease of communication 14. Thinking/problem-solving 15. Preparing thinking/checking

18. THEME: Group work (pluses) Sharing of views: “When we do group work there are things that you were not aware of before, and people bring up subjects that help you think about different things or if you don’t have a particular experience in what is being taught or lectured, other people with experience can share with you”. (Grad. Dip. SIE) Thinking/problem-solving: “In one of the lectures we had to create an observer format, and we had to do that, there were 5 or 6 of us. And, so the discussion around that was useful, interesting, helpful. And you know, we then took the best ideas from everyone. (Grad. Dip. SIE) Preparing thinking:... we were split into one, two... six groups I think it was, and given... a task, which we wrote on flip chart paper and then went up and fed it back to the main group, and that got a really good discussion going between everyone because you have sort of got everything written down(Professional Doctorate)

19. THEME: Group work (minuses) “I’m a special needs assistant and I’ve worked with children with ... lots of different disabilities but ... even though I would have examples of different things I would just think that is not the focus here, that’s not how we are supposed to look at the theories and the topics we are learning about”(MA Child Development) “group work can be a waste of time as you are on task for the first 2 mins and then discussing something else for the remaining time. This is good for social interaction but you are not learning” .(MA Psychology of Education) ...group discussion can take a substantial amount of time and sometimes the lecturer does not have the opportunity to finish presenting the material. (Grad Dip SIE)

20. THEME: Group work

21. THEME: Drawing on student’s experience

22. Tutor interviews The interviewer was a junior lecturer in the Department who was familiar with the programmes, knew the staff well, and was known for his interest in pedagogy. He conducted unstructured individual interviews with three tutors teaching on a range of courses. They spoke about their chosen strategies in teaching psychology and the reasons for their belief that these strategies assisted student learning. It was possible to identify a number of interlinked pedagogic themes informed by knowledge of the learners involved, of specific pedagogic techniques, and of issues and dilemmas related to the teaching they did.

23. Student/tutor contrasts Overall, the things that students feel help or hinder their learning are precise and practical. Tutors deeply interested in pedagogy seem more idealistic and vague. There are some assumptions not felt to be in need of justification.

24. For example, students rarely referred to their motivation. However this was an important theme in the tutor interviews. “…Actually motivation counts for an enormous amount, because, in a way, it leads people to be independent learners. And so you’re always searching for ways in which people can understand and make what they’re doing relevant to their work… you know, this work, the assignment, is intended to be directly relevant to people’s lives.”(Y-interview) Here motivation seems to mean ‘enthusiasm’. There is an assumption that what enthuses must be what is relevant to your work.

25. Whereas the students have a range of worked-out reasons for valuing (and sometimes disliking) certain types of interaction, ‘sharing views’ is a ‘principle’ for some tutors. No justification is felt to be needed. “ [I]believe that active learning, making the participants active rather than just sitting there copying from the board or whatever, or listening to me, that’s another basic principle...Okay, I think that my whole belief is that one learns through interaction.…my process is through questioning, so rather than telling them the answers or telling them what it is, I try all the time of thinking about questions that will lead in so that they will find out for themselves what it is I’m trying to get across.” (Z Interview).

26. One unexamined idea is that teachers are also learners; however students seem to prefer them to ‘know their stuff’: “I have never doubted the expert’s knowledge of the subject, I think that is one of the great things about being at the Institute is that is a given, you know the person who is lecturing you knows their stuff. Whether they can communicate it effectively or teach it effectively is sometimes another question” (MA Psy of Education) “ I think I – I think well one of the key things is to make it clear that the person standing in front of them is a learner in some way or another, and it’s not a difficult thing to do, in a way, because we are, you know, if we’re honest we’re always learning” (Y interview)