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(Document started on 17 Mar 2009.)
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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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