Research topic areas where proposals from PhD applicants are particularly welcome
Members of staff would particularly welcome applications to study for a PhD in one of their areas of research interest, as listed below, although we are also happy to consider applications to undertake research for a PhD in other areas.
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Member of staff |
Research interests relevant to PhD supervision |
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Teaching and learning in science (particularly biology and psychology); continuing professional development for school science educators; informal science learning. |
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Home and school influences on academic achievement and/or well-being; educational research using genetically sensitive designs; choosing extra-curricular activities; choosing careers and planning the future. |
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Childhood studies; children's literature; philosophy of education; theoretical approaches to childhood and education; childhood and education in culture and literature. |
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Science education; attitudes, engagement and participation in science; widening participation in science, including gender issues in science education, evaluation of educational interventions; systematic research reviews. |
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Processing and acquisition of formulaic language; usage-based approaches to second language acquisition; corpus-based research and experimental investigations of frequency effects; individual differences in implicit and explicit language learning. |
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Reading and language development and disorders; the processes underlying reading comprehension; new vocabulary learning and methods of vocabulary instruction; the interplay between oral language and reading development; learning needs of children with English as an Additional Language; effective interventions for children with reading and language difficulties. |
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Development education, global citizenship, transformative learning, critical pedagogies, critical reflection and dialogue. |
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Teaching and learning English as a foreign language; developing learner autonomy, TESOL materials development and reflective teaching. |
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Citizenship education; history education; global education; social studies education. |
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Science education (primary and secondary), particularly teaching and learning relating to the nature of science and socio-scientific issues; science teacher education; and philosophy for children. |
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The pedagogical applications and impact of emerging technologies; language assessment including automated writing evaluation and computer-based feedback; Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom; test washback; language learners and teachers; computer-mediated communication. |
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Higher education research; education policy; political economy of education; sociology of education; widening participation and social mobility. |
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Second language speech learning, including oral fluency development and pronunciation; new technologies in language learning and teaching, and in particular studies grounded in second language acquisition theory research; and, (computer-mediated) task-based language learning. |
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Classroom interaction; dialogic teaching; language curriculum-based research. |
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Historical and cultural formation and learning – especially learning that crosses cultural barriers. Epistemological, religious and political assumptions used in learning. Relations of power, critical pedagogy, themes of emancipation, the development of learning programmes and the micro-politics of learning communities; the public intellectual and the evolution of higher education. |
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Teacher-student interactions; measuring teacher effectiveness; student and teacher motivation and emotions; cross-cultural perspectives on education and psychology; motivation and emotions of students with special education needs. |
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Teaching and learning of science at the undergraduate level; development of expertise in experimental chemistry; interdisciplinary training. |
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Teacher cognition in language teaching; teaching second language reading; English for specific purposes; materials evaluation and design for language learning. |
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Psychological aspects of second language learning, in particular motivation and learner perceptions; language education policy; global Englishes and language learning. |
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Students’ and teachers’ understanding of primary- and secondary-level mathematics (e.g., arithmetic, fraction, decimal, algebra); developmental aspects of mathematical understanding. |
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Foreign and second language teaching and learning; Evaluation of foreign and second language practice and policy (particularly with comparative/experimental designs); Second language acquisition; Learning theories; Attention and memory in language learning. |
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Corrective feedback (oral and written); classroom interaction in language teaching; task-based language teaching; individual differences in language learning (focus on cognitive factors: aptitude, analytic ability, working memory); discourse analysis; writing instruction. |
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Psychological aspects of education e.g. school-based interventions, effective behaviour management in schools, coping with disadvantage, emotional barriers to learning. |
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Teaching poetry, particularly pre-twentieth century poetry; teaching and learning English in UK schools; initial teacher education in English; post-16 English pedagogy. |
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Teaching early modern drama (especially Shakespeare); English (subject) education policy; theatre and heritage education departments; representations of literature and reading in popular culture. |
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| Development and individual differences of implicit/statistical learning; neurobiology of reading across languages; neurocognitive bases of developmental dyslexia; diagnostic procedures in developmental dyslexia; behavioural and neuroimaging (namely fMRI and EEG) methods. | |
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Psychological aspects of language learning; grammatical acquisition; lexical acquisition; second language sentence processing. |
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Dr Paul Roberts |
English as an international language; internationalisation of the curriculum; English Language Teaching in China. |
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English Language Teaching: methodology, testing/assessment and English for Academic Purposes; assessment and feedback in higher education. |
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'Lad culture' and 'laddism' in compulsory and higher education; inclusion; gender-based violence and adolescents; gender and sexuality; sociology of education; sex education. |
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Early childhood education and settings; early literacy and phonics; programme evaluations and implementation fidelity; relationships between research and practice; teacher education, continuing professional development, and teacher retention; relationship between early health and educational outcomes. |
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Second language processing; second language grammar learning; learning of new vocabulary and methods for vocabulary instruction; learning needs of university students with English as a foreign language; developing listening in a second language (speech segmentation); bilingual cognition; definiteness and reference resolution. |
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Temporal and spatial reference across languages and learner varieties; conceptual restructuring in highly advanced second language learners; cross-linguistic influence in L2 acquisition; bilingual and multilingual code-switching. |
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Educational inequalities, especially access to higher education; sociology of education; higher education policy; postgraduate students; educational expansion; social stratification and social mobility. |