Introduction
My name is Alice Heaney and I graduated this summer from The
University of Manchester with a first class degree in Psychology. Having
studied Psychology at A level and being fascinated by the subject, I was eager
to learn more about the mind and behaviour. During my undergraduate degree, I
developed an interest in health psychology, whilst my enthusiasm for statistics
and research methods continued to grow. The enjoyment gained from these modules
helped me realise that a career in research was something I wished to pursue. Being
fortunate enough to find a position that incorporates my areas of interest, I now
work as a research assistant for Galen Research Ltd.
In Depth
When I tell people that I’m a research assistant, they tend
to picture me working in a laboratory, wearing a white lab coat and handling
chemicals. However the picture is quite the opposite in reality! To provide
some background into the company I work for, at Galen Research we develop
disease-specific, patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures. In other words, we design
questionnaires that assess patient’s views on how they feel their medical
condition and the treatment they receive affect their quality of life. The
content of our measures is derived from in-depth qualitative interviews with
patients to ensure they capture issues important to them. Our measures serve as valuable tools for the
pharmaceutical industry and health services worldwide, such as the NHS, in assessing
the impact of specific conditions and their treatments.
As a research assistant, I am involved in supporting the
senior researchers with the development, translation and validation of our
measures. My responsibilities range from transcribing interviews and performing
statistical analyses to helping with the writing of research articles for
publication in academic journals. My undergraduate degree equipped me with an
abundance of transferable skills which have proven to be of great help to my current
role. The obvious one to mention would be the research skills I learned during
my Psychology course, gained through experience of designing research questions
and studies as well as collecting and analysing both quantitative and
qualitative data. The opportunity to undertake an independent project in third
year not only helped to develop project management skills but also allowed me
to build upon problem-solving, critical evaluation and interpersonal skills,
amongst many more. The ability to
communicate information clearly to a variety of audiences is another skill
which I have brought with me, exercising effective communication on a regular
basis in the form of academic writing, meetings and oral presentations.
I hope that I’ve been able to provide some insight into what
my role as a research assistant entails. In the near future I will be applying
for a research passport which would allow me to conduct interviews with
patients. Something else to look forward to is the international travel my work
involves. This month I am heading to Portugal to carry out a linguistic and
cultural adaptation of one of our measures. In terms of my aspirations,
progressing to the role of senior research associate as well as studying for a
PhD are long term goals which I am working towards. For now though I plan to
continue to gain valuable experience at Galen Research.
.
Going further
If you would like to know more about the research we carry
out, please visit our website:
http://www.galen-research.com
For more information on studying Psychology at The
University of Manchester:
http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/undergraduate/psychology
To keep up to date with current research developments in the
field of psychology, please refer to the ‘Research Digest’ section of The British
Psychological Society’s website. The site also provides useful information
about careers and accredited courses in Psychology:
http://www.bps.org.uk
Introduction
Hi, my name is Kelly and I now work in the Student
Recruitment and Widening Participation department of the University of
Manchester. For the past three years, I have been a student studying Psychology
at the University and for the thirteen years before that, I too was propelled
along the standard education pipeline (or maybe not so standard anymore) by
attending first school, middle school and high school.
In Depth…
One of the main parts of my job, for the past couple months
now, has been the development of an EBL project for our visiting Year 11
students. EBL stands for ‘Enquiry Based Learning’ (or Inquiry Based Learning if
you’re American) and is equivalent to ‘Problem Based Learning’, which you might
have heard of before. This method of teaching starts with a question, a problem
or a scenario, and it is the student’s task to solve this problem, with the aid
of a facilitator.
Not a teacher.
That’s great, right?
Think again.
The lack of teacher leading the way means that the road from
problem to solution is less smooth, less clear, but then when in life is the
answer ever clear? In this situation, you are
responsible for your own learning, for figuring out your answers and where they
fall into the topic of your choice. This method of independent learning is
fundamental to the way students traditionally learn at university.
- You’re given a topic
or a lecture – a foundation, so you can understand the task
- You are provided
with resources to be used as starting points (these can be textbooks, journal
articles or websites)
- And then you have to
produce work at the end of it e.g. an essay, a report or a presentation, about
what you've found out
This is what I've tried to
recreate in my own EBL project for visiting Y11 students. This project is the
finale to the flagship pre-16 Gateways programme, ran by the University of
Manchester. Groups of school pupils visit campus year upon year, from Y7 to Y11,
to find out more about the opportunities to study in Higher Education and
develop new and transferable skills. In this final part of the programme,
students are presented with a lecture on a case study (a Volcanic Disaster for
this year). They were then sorted into groups depending on their interests and
sent away (with the help of a Student Ambassador) to research that area for an
hour and a half. The day finishes with each group giving a presentation on what
they found and a prize is given to the group that presented the best.
This transition from teacher-led to research-led learning
replicates what you would experience if you chose to study at university. When
you’re at the cutting edge of your field and learning the newest knowledge
being published to date, it’s highly likely that you’ll find yourself not knowing
the answers, and being in the position where YOU could contribute to future
knowledge, explanations and discoveries.
Throughout your early school days, you may have been taught
that there’s only one right answer, and you’ll get a mark for getting that
answer right. University is different. There might be some things that we THINK
answer the question, but these may still be debated. Something you, or the
media or the educational system take for a fact, may still actually be not so
certain.
Some courses at university take advantage of this method.
Medicine is taught using in many universities around the country. It works in similar
to the EBL project above: all of the medics would be split off into groups with
people they don’t know, they would be given a case study – perhaps a patient
with a case of symptoms. It would be their job to work together to research and
collaborate and figure out the causes and treatments of the case.
I believe taking part in EBL tasks early on in education has
the advantage of pressing students to think outside of the box and to find their
own answers; sometimes topics can be more complicated than just getting the
answer right.
Going Further…
Here are some references you may find useful:
Introduction
Hi, my name is Carys Rees-Owen and I am a recent graduate of
European Studies and French. Doing a joint honours degree gave me loads of
options, which is why I chose this degree. I studied French, History and
English Literature at A levels – I always knew I wanted to study French at
university, as I loved languages, but I also wanted to specialise in another
subject. European Studies allows you to choose any module from the Politics,
History or Economics department, with one or two compulsory modules in European
Politics every year. I decided to focus on politics modules as I’d always followed
the news and took part in debates.
In Depth
Choosing Where To Go
The best thing about my degree was the option to spend my
third year abroad in order to improve my French. I had the choice of studying
abroad, teaching English abroad as an English Language Assistant or working
abroad. I wanted a bit of variety, and definitely wasn’t ready to get a proper
job or internship. I wasn’t too eager to spend a whole other year studying either,
but I did want to experience life as a French student. I decided to make a
compromise – I applied to study at a university in Lyon, France for the first
term and then applied to be a Comenius assistant in Martinique, a small French
island in the Caribbean, for the second term. A Comenius assistant is similar
to an English Language Assistant, however with the option to teach another
subject besides English (like politics). All assistant jobs are funded by the
British Council, meaning all my accommodation, food and travel costs were
covered as well as an allowance for living. I also got an Erasmus grant for
studying at a European university, so the cost of going abroad was never a big
worry for me.
My Year Abroad
I moved to Lyon, France’s second biggest city, at the end of
summer 2013. After a lot of searching, I managed to find a flat with another 3
French students just down the road from my university. The next five months are
a blur of cheese, good wine and French cafés. I loved living in France, but
studying there was completely different to how I imagined. Lectures lasted 3
hours long (when in Manchester they last an hour) and it felt a bit more like
high school – there was a lot less discussion and debate than I was used to in
Manchester. I studied Politics modules there, but in French. It was interesting
to see how similar topics were taught in France but from a completely different
angle. I did struggle at first with my courses but as my French improved I
found it a lot easier. I saw such a drastic improvement in my French in such a
short amount of time, and definitely took advantage of discovering a new city.
I then moved to Martinique in January 2014. It’s such a
beautiful island, with so many white sandy beaches, thick jungle and a great
mix of French and local Creole culture existing there. I worked in a high
school for 5 months, working roughly twelve hours a week. This meant that the rest of the time I had
there I was free to do whatever I wanted. I spent my time on beaches, hiking in
the jungle and mountains and exploring the island. Teaching English was
challenging, especially considering that my pupils were only 4 years younger
than myself but it was a really good way to integrate into the local community.
I made really good friends with some of the other teachers there, who taught me
more about the culture and history of Martinique.
Overall, I couldn’t have asked for a better year abroad. I
got to experience French student life, as well as spend months lounging on
white sand beaches in the Caribbean. More importantly, my French improved drastically,
as did my confidence. Moving to a completely different country without knowing
anybody is incredibly challenging, and sometimes frustrating, but the
experiences I had were definitely worth it.
Going Further
Getting the chance to study abroad isn’t just limited to
language students either – check if your course allows you to study abroad for
a semester! I’d recommend checking out these websites for more information on
what you could do:
www.thirdyearabroad.com
http://www.britishcouncil.org/study-work-create
Introduction
My name is
Nicola Beer and I work as a Graduate Intern for the Student Recruitment and
Widening Participation department at the University of Manchester. Prior to
this, I completed a degree in Psychology (also at the University of Manchester)
and I graduated in July this year.
As part of my
degree I was required to undertake a final year project under the supervision
of an academic researcher at the University of Manchester. One area that
particularly interested me throughout my degree was Health Psychology and so I
was pleased when the supervisor I was allocated to was a researcher in this
area.
My research
project involved investigating factors that influence people’s intentions to take
on a particular health behaviour. The health behaviour that I focused on in my
research was sexual health behaviour. More specifically, I focused on what
influenced people to use a self-test kit to test themselves for STI infections.
In Depth
In order to
carry out my research, I tested factors from a theory used by many Health
Psychologists, called Protection Motivation Theory. One factor from this model that
is believed to influence people’s health behaviour is ‘self-efficacy’. Self-efficacy
is defined as one’s belief in their own ability to change their behaviour; if
they have high self-efficacy they are more likely to engage in positive health
behaviours. Another factor is ‘fear’. Does how fearful someone is about a
particular health outcome (e.g. obtaining a sexually transmitted disease, as I
investigated in my research) influence the health behaviour they display?
In order to collect
data for my research, I developed a questionnaire with my supervisor that
contained questions designed to measure what influences peoples’ intentions to
use a self-test kit. I ran various statistical tests on the questionnaire to
check its internal consistency
(whether several items that propose to measure the same general construct
produce similar scores). It was then sent out to all first and second year
undergraduate Psychology students who completed it online.
What I found…
I analysed the results
using a hierarchical multiple regression and found, consistent with much other
research in the area, that two factors significantly predicted individual’s
intentions to self-test for Chlamydia. These factors were vulnerability and
self-efficacy; therefore those
who perceived themselves to be more vulnerable
to the health risk, and those with higher self-efficacy, were more likely to
intend to self-test, i.e. more likely to carry out the positive health
behaviour.
What this
means…
My research has
practical applications to the real-world suggesting that increasing an individuals’ self-efficacy will result in
them being more likely to use self-test kits. An example of this practical
application could be to provide clear instructions with self-test kits with the
aim of increasing individual’s confidence in their ability to use the kit.
My research was also useful in that it can
be used to inform academics of future areas that research could be carried out
in. For example, more research could go into examining further the role of fear
in predicting behavioural intentions (which did not produce a significant
result in my research).
I enjoyed my final year research project
because I got the chance to use skills gained during my degree (e.g.
statistical analysis and data collection skills) to carry out research into an
area that interested me.
Going Further…
Introduction
Hi, my name is Helen and I have just completed my second
year of undergraduate study at the University of Manchester. The subject of my degree is English Language
for Education, which is a small course but is very specific and has allowed me to
combine my interests in both language and education. In my second year my
degree enabled me to conduct research within two schools that concerned the use
of languages other than English by bilingual and multilingual students in their
school and their education.
In Depth
As part of my degree in my second year, we were required to
complete a research project. We were given the choice to do our own independent
research or to part take in a research project that the University was already
undertaking. I wanted to conduct my own research, however after much
deliberation on which subject and areas I would like to look into, I decided to
join a project called Multilingual Manchester. This project focuses on
promoting the awareness of language diversity in the Manchester area. After a
few meetings with the organisers of the project, I understood my role was to
take part in and conduct the School Language Surveys. This involved me and a
few other students on the project entering two schools in Manchester (a
secondary and primary school) and interviewing the students about their
language use. This project was great as it allowed me to do research on
language within education, which has always been a large interest of mine.
As I originally wanted to conduct my own research, I decided
to add some of my own questions into the surveys the Multilingual Manchester
project had already provided us. I was particularly interested in the
usefulness of speaking a language other than English in school, whether the
students used it much in school and if they enjoyed using their language. Using
both my own questions and those from the Multilingual Manchester team, I was
able to collect data that told me the range of languages that were spoken
amongst the students in those schools and their opinions on whether they used
languages other than English much and if they liked using languages other than
English. I was also interested in the teachers’ perspectives on the use of
languages other than English in the classroom, and so I emailed a survey to the
teachers at one of the schools.
All the way through completing the project, although I knew
my interests and what I wanted to get out of the research, I was unsure on what
specific question I would have to answer for my report. However, when all the
data I had collected was in front of me, my aims became much clearer and I was
able to analyse my data and produce a report on students’ and teachers’
perspectives on the use and usefulness of multilingualism.
Throughout my degree I have become increasingly interested
with language diversity, especially in the Manchester area, and I had wondered
how this had impacted education. I really enjoyed this project as it gave me
the opportunity to gain experience working in a school and to observe for
myself the impact that increased language diversity is having on education. I
found that the schools were really embracing language diversity, and were
beginning to change their curriculum in order to include and teach the
languages of their students across the school.
Going Further
As I enter my third and final year of my degree, I have
decided to take this research further and work on it for my dissertation. As
this project progressed, I found myself becoming increasingly passionate about
the subject and the research that I was undertaking. I found it to be an
important piece of research as it displays the change in attitudes toward
language diversity in schools and where in education students find it useful to
speak a second language and where they don’t. I want to carry this on to
possibly see how schools could further integrate second language speaking into
education, or to see the impact that second language speakers are having on
teachers and the classroom.
For more information about the English Language for
Education course at the University of Manchester http://www.manchester.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/2015/09173/english-language-for-education-ba-3-years-ba/
For further information about education courses at the
University of Manchester http://www.seed.manchester.ac.uk/subjects/education/
For further details about Multilingual Manchester http://mlm.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/
For further information on the
results of the School Language Surveys http://mlm.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/reports/schools-and-public-services/