Reflecting on higher education through a psychological lens
[Addendum: 08.08.2025 - some NHS apprenticeships at Level 7 will now continue to be funded for a further 5 years - hooray! News story here] I’ve not covered a lot about education policy here recently but the recent announcement that the government levy for Level 7 (masters level) apprenticeships would be removed for apprentices aged… Continue reading Recent announcement on Level 7 apprenticeships
In the UK, new professors are usually expected to give what is known as an 'inaugural professorial lecture', a public lecture that offers some insight into how the person became a professor, drawing to different extents on the personal and professional stories that intertwine to bring them to the current day. When I was appointed… Continue reading Giving psychology away: Making a difference in higher education
Thanks to the wonderful human that is Meredith Wilkinson of De Montfort University I am proud to be a member of the Disabled Women's Academic Network, which she set up a couple of years ago. It's an inclusive and supportive network, and is growing under Meredith's leadership. On Friday last week, Meredith emailed us to… Continue reading Being a disabled woman in academia – some tips
On 29th November, 2024, I was super excited to join T-FUN - the Teaching Focused University Network (Psychology) - to talk about education-focused careers in Psychology. T-FUN is an exciting brand new network for teaching-focused psychology academics! The inaugural webinar featured founders Dr Katy Burgess (Cardiff University) and Prof Louise Taylor (Oxford Brookes University), plus… Continue reading Shining a spotlight on scholarship: Building and developing your profile in an education-focused career in psychology
For education-focused academics, getting promoted can be hard. Even being appreciated just for doing what you do can sometimes be hard. How can we build the kind of profile that contributes to reward and recognition? When your schedule is packed full of teaching, student support, marking, quality assurance, course committees, marking, outreach, not to mention… Continue reading The ‘buy one, get one free’ (BOGOF) model of scholarship in higher education
Summary of a keynote talk given at the Association for the Teaching of Psychology Annual International Conference, University of Lincoln, July 2024. First published as a blog by EFPTA (the European Federation of Psychology Teachers' Associations). Within the UK, there has been an increasingly noisy rhetoric about “low quality” university courses, which has focused on… Continue reading Psychology? It’s a Mickey Mouse subject…is it?
It was a joy to share my thoughts on student transitions at the SEDA Spring Event on 6th May 2022 (before I moved to my new role at NTU). I took the opportunity to talk about my work on diverse student transitions and also to emphasise my thinking around student voices (see a previous blog… Continue reading SEDA Spring Event 2022: Transitions through higher education
Going to university can be an exciting and challenging time for students, when they explore who they are, how they fit in, and who they want to be. Julie shares her reflections on student transitions into, through, and out of higher education into employment through the lens of 'possible selves'. How can we empower students… Continue reading Belonging, being, and becoming: Exploring possible selves through the transitions into, through, and beyond higher education
How has psychology education changed in the UK over the past decade? As we await the new QAA subject benchmark, due in summer 2023, we can expect a growing emphasis on psychological literacy, the ability to apply psychology to personal, professional, and societal domains, within our degree programmes. We can expect the new benchmark to… Continue reading Psychological literacy in the UK: Outcomes and pedagogy
It was an absolute joy to record this Psychology in the Classroom podcast with Lucinda Powell of Changing States of Mind (September 2021). At what point do people accept the label 'Disabled'? What are the barriers to acceptance? Why do students fail to tell educational establishments about disabilities when it may be in their interests… Continue reading Social identity and disability in the classroom
HigherPsychEd 