School of Psychology

I re-joined the School of Psychology in September 2004 as a Teaching Fellow and Learning Support Tutor and became a lecturer in September 2005. I am a former PhD student and Graduate Teaching Assistant of the department (during the period 1998-2001). My PhD focused on identifying the social skills problems that put children at risk of being bullied. Also, I developed and ran a Social Skills Training Programme for children bullied by their peers, and evaluated the effectiveness of this intervention. Following my PhD I worked as a Research Associate in the School of Social Relations on a project to evaluate the work of the NSPCC Schools Teams (2001-2003), and for one year I was a member of the research team based at the University of Birmingham responsible for the National Evaluation of the Children’s Fund.

I am committed to conducting applied social psychological research which has both theoretical and practical implications. In particular, I am interested in the problem of bullying in schools. Supported by two research grants in 2009 (from the BPS and British Academy) I developed a humour styles questionnaire for children and young people and have recently embarked on a longitudinal study funded by the ESRC to examine the links between children’s humour styles and the problem of bullying in schools (project blog). This will be done in collaboration with Dr Simon Hunter at the University of Strathclyde. Another recent collaboration with Dr David Gadd and Professor Ian Butler has resulted in a major ESRC award of £385,000 over three years to examine the question of how to prevent more boys from becoming perpetrators of domestic violence in later life. Mary-Louise Corr, formerly of Trinity College, Dublin is the Research Associate working on this project. We have also recently launched a European wide project supported by a substantial grant under the Daphne III call. The total sum is for 309,000 euros over 2 years starting in March 2011. The READAPT project (Relationship Education and Domestic Abuse Prevention Tuition) involves us working with 6 partners across Europe in the UK, Spain, Malta, France, Sweden and Belgium (www.readapt.eu)

I am Chair of the Social Psychology research group. As a member of the Centre for Psychological Research I sit within the Research Institute for Social Sciences.

Year 1

• PSY-10019 : Applied Psychology

Year 2

• PSY-20012 : Individuals and Society II

Year 3

• PSY-30061 : Final Year Project
• PSY-30041 : Peer Relationships in Childhood and Adolescence (module leader)

PG level

I teach on the MSc Psychology programmes including the MSc in Counselling Psychology. I have one PhD student, Becky Hale, who is researching the experiences of parents whose children are bullied at school.
My excellence in learning and teaching was recognised in 2010 with a Keele University Teaching Excellence Award.