Welcome to Pedagogical Action Research : Psychology

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Welcome

The PAR Psychology Research Group is dedicated to the study of learning and teaching in higher education. Action research involves both lecturers and students collaborating on research aimed studying the courses we teach as we teach them. PAR research is carried out in the classroom and its findings are fed back to help improve and develop the learning and teaching experience for all involved.

An example of one of the current PAR Psychology projects is our feedback recycling project. Feedback on assignments is provided in the hope that the students would apply the lessons and advice provided in their feedback from one year to the next. The assignment-feedback "loop" should go from student to tutor and back to student again, but in many cases this just doesn't happen. Too often the feedback for the second semester assignments is ignored and remains uncollected in the students’ pigeon holes. In those cases the loop becomes a straight line from student to tutor to pigeon hole to recycling bin. Adding insult to injury students then go on to make the same type of mistakes in their assignments at level H as we had found and feedback on in their assignments at level I.

The feedback recycling project aims to tackle this using a simple program aimed at "closing the loop" again. Feedback from one year is carried over and built in to the delivery of courses in the following year, using this feedback as the foundation of the student's approach to their assignments the following year. As well as helping with the feedback 'issue' this program provides us with an opportunity to study the students' perceptions of feedback in general.

Based within Psychology, members of The PAR Psychology Research Group are involved in experimental research, phenomenological research and field investigations. Action research is taking place in working educational environment. This means our findings are of great relevance to that environment and can be applied to make immediate improvements there. On the other hand we must sometimes compromise between the demands of scientific rigour with the need to provide the best education for all students involved. This is the challenge of Pedagogical Action Research.
Last Updated ( Monday, 17 May 2010 )
 
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Pedadgogical Action Research: Psychology