Social Identity, Norms and Approaches to Learning: Presentation at Exeter Psychology

Ken visited Exeter Psychology to present our work on Social Identity in Educational contexts, and to meet with colleagues and postgraduate students.  The talk focused on our research on discipline-based social identity (for example, as a psychology student), peer norms, and instructor norms about approach to learning. We now have a substantial line of work … Read more

Research, Knowledge Exchange and the Military Sector

Ken had the opportunity to present and be part of a panel discussion in a fascinating inter-disciplinary workshop on research, knowledge exchange and the military sector held in the Byre theatre. The workshop was an initiative of the visualising war research group and aimed at exploring the practical challenges, opportunities and ethical dilemmas that arise … Read more

Presentation at BERA HE event on transitions and challenges

Ken had the opportunity to present our recent work on the experience of identity incompatibility that some students might feel between their home identities and university identity. The analysis showed that    experienced of incompatibility can undermine positive learning behaviours and increase the likelihood of learning-undermining behaviours like procrastination and self-handicapping. The BERA special event was … Read more

Ken presents at BERA2018 on identity and norms effects on approach to learning

Ken had the opportunity to present two studies on discipline social identity, deep learning approaches, peer and instructor norms, and the implications for academic grades. The British Educational Research Association conference is a large and diverse educational conference hosted around the UK each year. Ken presented two research studies, both of which have now been … Read more

Social Identification and Academic Performance: Integrating Two Existing Models of Tertiary Student Learning

We have now had this paper accepted at Educational Psychology. This was a collaboration between Ken and colleagues at the Australian National University. Abstract: Recent research has mapped the ways social identification and normative influence affect students’ self-reported learning approaches and course experience, and also, the ways in which social identification and learning approach impact … Read more

When student and educator learning norms collide:

This paper is a collaboration between Ken and colleagues at the Australian National University. It is the first paper where we try to explicitly account for both peer and educator norms, and explore the latter using norm manipulation. Smyth L, Chandra V, Mavor K.I. Social identification and normative conflict: When student and educator learning norms … Read more

Bashar Albaghli completes his PhD

Bashar came to St Andrews supported by Kuwait University, after completing a Masters in the US. The focus of Bashar’s project has been to explore the links between different understandings of religiosity, political factors, and attitudes toward other religious and political groups.  The thesis title is “Religiosity and prejudice in a Western and Islamic context”. … Read more

Kerry O’Brien completes his PhD

Congratulations to Kerry for completing his PhD changes in time for the recent graduation ceremony. Kerry explored several ways of using framing to either make particular identities more salient, or to influence the meaning of those identities. Kerry’s PhD is titled “Framing issues and identities: Aligning the content of group identity with the meaning of issues … Read more

Finding connections in social identity and post-structuralist perspectives

One of the interesting challenges in the recent edited book on Self and Social Identity  in Educational contexts was the final chapter: The social construction of teachers’ identities: finding connections in social identity and post-structuralist perspectives by Emma Rich, Kenneth I. Mavor and Louisa Webb.  what we tried to do in this chapter was find some … Read more

Social identity in education: the modifying role for perceived norms

This is a book chapter by Lillian Smyth, Kenneth I. Mavor, Michael J. Platow and Diana M. Grace in our recently published edited book. In this chapter we explore the recent work by ourselves and also Bliuc and colleagues, examining the relationship between discipline-based social identity and approached to learning (deep or surface). In particular we emphasise the … Read more