Using games in a classroom setting to help engagement and learning is becoming popular, but controlled investigations into the benefits of games are few. Games are potentially a way to incorporate retrieval practice into a class and garner subsequent benefits to memory. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether a board game assisted…

The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated a national lockdown, and the implementation of Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) in higher education (HE), but there is a gap in the literature in terms of how Psychology students, studying a single-honours degree in the UK, responded to ERT for practical lab classes. The aim of this study was to assess the…

Statistics is a core subject in the psychology undergraduate curriculum and is often associated with increased anxiety among learners. The aim of this study was to identify factors relating to statistics anxiety, and specifically, how prior experiences in mathematics and A-Level science qualifications may influence students' perceptions as they…

From a series of listening exercises as part of the Race Equality Review (2021) at the University of Reading, it become clear that decolonising the curriculum is important to both students and staff. The aim of the decolonising the curriculum project was to create an effective resource to support colleagues to decolonise their curricula across a…

A feminist perspective is not only compatible with the history, objectives, and emphases of social psychology, but necessary for its continued vitality' (Lott, 1991, p.505). Social psychology is a core component of the British Psychological Society accreditation of psychology programmes. Typically, the teaching of social psychology relies upon…

Whilst the widening participation programme aims to increase the accessibility of undergraduate study for students with a lower socio-economic status, much less support is available for students wishing to progress to postgraduate study. Postgraduate study risks becoming a discipline exclusive to those from upper-middle class and upper-class…

The pandemic resulted in many courses being shifted to online delivery, but some courses are designed as online courses from their conception. Courses intentionally designed for online delivery should be well-received by students, but it is not clear which aspects of courses students find particularly appealing and unappealing. We examined…

Drug and alcohol neonate simulators were used to highlight the effects of substance misuse on prenatal development within lifespan development modules to 61 Psychology undergraduates and 12 sixth-form Health and Social Care students. A mixed method approach was used considering both knowledge development and perceptions of experiential hands-on…

Academic achievement can be thought of as the extent to which learning has been accomplished. Previous work suggests that students' self-esteem is impacted by academic achievement, though it is not entirely clear why this is. The current study therefore explored this through interviewing eight psychology students from a Scottish university, before…

Statistics courses are challenging for many psychology students. We designed a 'Painting and Puzzles Exercise Book for Statistics' for first year psychology undergraduates, to repeat and deepen the course content and get prepared for the exam. We describe the development and characteristics of the book and report a longitudinal evaluation study.…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, students, and teachers of the developing countries had to shift from the face-to-face traditional classroom to an e-learning environment, which elicited various reactions to teaching and learning. I conducted this research to understand how students perceived online learning and to share my reflexive experiences about…

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to shape and disrupt teaching provision in Higher Education, educators have responded with a swift pivot to online teaching for the 2020-2021 academic year. The debate surrounding the pedagogic utility of pre-recorded 'asynchronous' versus live 'synchronous' lecture modality continues to grow among teachers of…

In the UK, psychology degrees are designed to equip students with skills such as critical thinking, research methods, and analytical debate. Many of the key skills and subject-specific content that is taught in the first year of a psychology programme is also introduced in A-level and AS-level study of psychology. Therefore, one would expect…

Psychological literacy is a concept in psychology learning and teaching in Higher Education (HE) that considers how psychology students can intentionally apply psychological knowledge to personal, professional and societal goals. However, despite its prevalence among psychology Higher Education scholars and developers, it is unclear whether…

Research methods and statistics are cornerstones of undergraduate psychology degrees. However, many students find the subject uninteresting and anxiety provoking, while educators find it challenging to teach. This multi-method action research project explored how e-learning activities within a blended learning context affected students' experience…