Understanding student motivation is key to unlocking higher student satisfaction and allowing teachers to meet the expectations of their students. Psychology students have their own unique motivations. Using autoethnographic methods, a recent graduate and a professor of psychology come together to recall our own experiences from the classroom.…

This paper describes the implementation of a new and innovative learning activity created to enhance the learning experience of psychology undergraduate dissertation students. The writing retreat is a student-based learning activity which aims to address students' needs over the final stages of the dissertation module. Involving active-learning,…

Encouraging students to 'believe that they can achieve' is a central element to teaching. The belief that it is one's efforts and techniques, rather than one's innate abilities which lead to success has a positive impact on learning behaviours. As such, Yvonne Skipper strives to promote this malleable view of intelligence (or growth mindset) in…

Adaptability refers to an individual's cognitive, behavioural, and emotional adjustment in the face of novel, changing, or uncertain situations. A growing literature has demonstrated the influence of adaptability on students' academic outcomes at primary, secondary level, and more recently, tertiary levels; however, its influence on students'…

The relationship between academic motivation, support structures, self-esteem, and social mobility was assessed between three culturally distinct Higher Education student cohorts. Two-hundred-and-sixty-seven students took part in the study: 64 American undergraduates; 100 British undergraduates; and 103 Ugandan undergraduates. Using a number of…

A levels in England are moving from a modular to a linear system. Additionally, the AS and A level are being "decoupled", meaning that students will no longer undertake summative assessment at the end of the first year of study. Psychology may be particularly vulnerable to these changes as students often have no prior experience of the…

The aim was to explore the relationship between sources of stress and a range of coping behaviours on student satisfaction and motivation. Most research exploring sources of stress construes stress as distress, with little attempt to consider positive, good stress or "eustress" experiences. A cohort of first-year psychology students…

The aim was to explore the predictive ability of sources of stress and a range of dispositional and coping behaviours on student satisfaction and motivation. Most research exploring sources of stress and coping in students construes stress as psychological distress, with little attempt to consider positive experiences of stress. A questionnaire…

In responding to Hartley (2011), this paper considers his concluding remarks as recommendations for the future of teaching undergraduate psychology and challenges the position that the teaching of psychology hasn't altered vastly during the last 50 years. In doing so, it is acknowledged that the content and delivery of higher education psychology…

Two preliminary studies are presented investigating the self-beliefs that may affect goal achievement in a student population. In Study 1, goal achievement on an abstract task, where goals are externally set by others, is considered in relation to students' levels of optimism. In Study 2, goal achievement on academic performance, where goals are…

The argument presented here is that the teaching of psychology in the UK is focused on the learning of technical skills and is missing the opportunity to enthuse and inspire students in the personal science. This focus mirrors a general educational drive in the UK towards achievement at external examinations which are assessed by narrow cognitive…

Non-traditional students are increasingly making up a larger part of the student body and can include students from various groupings, for example, differentiated by ethnicity, socio-economic class (SEC), disability, residential location or age. The aim of this initial exploratory study was to investigate whether and how the motivations, identity…

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with teaching staff and students associated with a longstanding Certificate of Higher Education in Psychology course. Participants were invited to give their views upon why a declining number of people from "wider participation" or "socially disadvantaged" backgrounds come forward to…

The aim of this study was to examine an expanded integrative hierarchical model of test emotions and achievement goal orientations in predicting the examination performance of undergraduate students. Achievement goals were theorised as mediating the relationship between test emotions and performance. 120 undergraduate students completed…

The aim of this paper is two-fold. The first aim is to discuss some observations gained from teaching psychology to computing students, highlighting both the wide range of areas where psychology is relevant to computing education and the topics that are relevant at different stages of students' education. The second aim is to consider findings…