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My profile as project supervisor

By Steve Draper, Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow.

This page is to hold my profile as a project supervisor, especially a supervisor of undergraduate level 4 maxi projects.

General areas

My general interest is in education at university level: what makes a difference to students' learning? My web pages as a whole illustrate my range of interests within this. I recently wrote 4 papers, which indicate some recent particular interests. And the next section gives examples of topics for future maxi projects.

I am teaching a course on Positive Psychology. I have not yet thought of projects I want to do myself in that area, but would consider supervising a student in the area.

However I have quite often supervised projects in areas I knew nothing about, if the student has come with a specific idea and not required detailed technical knowledge from me but general support and someone to discuss their ideas with. (A recent example was theory of mind in ravens in Edinburgh zoo.) In fact these have been some of the best projects I've supervised. (But no left-over clinical psychology wannabes please, especially when it is a general interest area but not a specific project.)

Specific topics

Dweck's "mindsets", and related studies.
Peer assisted learning; study groups (what makes them really valuable, or not).
What aspects of group work matter for learning?
I'm interested in a project (following up on one this year) on: when will students who don't know each other nevertheless spontaneously collaborate on a task, and when is their judgement right or wrong as to whether this will improve their task performance? What role does shyness play (if any) in this?
I'm collaborating with Jaye Richards, a teacher in a secondary school on the south side, who has demonstrated major learning gains using a VLE in her classes. There will be more research to do on what exactly the important features of her new method are, perhaps following up a classroom observational project. See here and here.
How does feedback to students actually work? Is it really as important as the literature believes? is it always important, or just in some circumstances? When it helps, what are the conditions e.g. having a 2-way conversation not just a set of written comments?
Creating (developing, piloting, testing) workshops for students that increase their study skills, exam skills, justified self-confidence in their knowledge and ability as students. I have done a few of these: many more would be good.

Still wider general areas

In the past I have done research in HCI (human computer interaction) and related topics. I have supervised a PhD on nutrition labels on food packages; and 2 PhDs at the Art School: one on education in the Art school (including a study we did with a maxi student), and one on a theory of individual differences in approaches to design.

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