Students
An inspiring project
James Hardie
LAST year I flew to India to work in
a rural hospital for three months with people who have leprosy. I was
there to carry out research for my health psychology MSc dissertation
project, studying the psychological impact of leprosy. My mission was
to design and implement a pioneering assessment form – the
Psychological Impact of Leprosy Scale (PILS) – which might offer
professionals a more appropriate, biopsychosocial insight.
I had spent many hours in the library and on the internet searching for
inspiration and the elusive specificity that I required, finding it
difficult to identify a suitable focus and manageable literature base
that contained really engaging and worthwhile issues. I was very aware
that I would be committing my life to that one topic for a number of
months, often forsaking all else! It was with trepidation that I
finally settled on a subject, knowing that only a good selection would
sustain and perpetually enthuse. Eventually I constructed an unlikely
but fascinating research proposal; an unusual, perhaps ambitious
project, addressing a historically important and surprisingly
overlooked subject.
Such an infamous affliction as leprosy, especially with its legendary
connotations and stigma, demonstrates an obvious need for
psychologists’ efforts; but despite this, there are almost none working
in the area. Having e-mailed various professionals during the course of
my literature review, I managed to make contact with a clinical
psychologist in India who worked with people who have leprosy. Our
correspondence led to an invitation, and a few months later I was
making the necessary arrangements to visit the hospital. In order to
alleviate the financial burden of this project I applied for and
secured partial but significant funding through my institution.
Academic supervision was available both from the resident psychologist
in India and by e-mail from my lecturers in the UK. Support and advice
was also offered by the Leprosy Mission, to whom I hope to present my
findings and so raise awareness of the potential use of psychology.
Carrying out this work in India has given me the opportunity to travel
abroad, visiting a developing country to carry out my own research in a
different culture and language. One of the hardest realities to face
was the language barrier, which would not have been such an issue had I
been visiting in any other capacity. I was always frustratingly
constrained by my dependence upon translators and felt linguistically
disabled as an impotent psychologist! Despite such difficulties it has
provided me with career-enhancing clinical experience and a novel,
pioneering research project
for my postgraduate dissertation. I would recommend the experience to anyone.
Being able to choose your own subject to tackle in a research project
is always an exciting prospect. It offers you the freedom and
responsibility to decide upon and develop your own professional
interests. All kinds of opportunities and even adventures may be on
offer, if you look out for them.
- James Hardie was at Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh. E-mail: [email protected].
Getting full marks
Kham Khun on a successful strategy.
AS a student at Herschel
Grammar School, I got full marks for my A-level coursework. Coursework
is such a vital part of student life that I thought I should share my
experiences.
My project looked at the effects of changing background colour of paper
on visual stress, in relation to the speed of reading. Visual stress
refers to unpleasant symptoms when reading, including visual distortion
of print, illusions of colour and movement, eyestrain and headaches. My
interest in the area developed when reading an article in Psychology
Review, written by Alison Wadeley. This article outlined some of the
past studies: for example, Olive Meares and Helen Irlen (1989) used
coloured overlays to reduce visual distortions reported by some
dyslexic children.
Psychology Review is a very helpful publication aimed at psychology
sixth-form students. Each publication has a section dedicated to
coursework issues, providing useful outlines of how to conduct your
coursework, with a breakdown of the criteria expected by the different
examination bodies. Books such as Mike Cardwell’s Psychology for
A2-level and Greer and Mulhan’s Making Sense of Data and Statistics in
Psychology are helpful for the statistical part of the coursework.
But to get high marks it really does help to go beyond these sources for some in-depth research.
I used the internet to narrow my search, which led me to Professor
Arnold Wilkins (University of Essex). His research concerned treatment
of visual discomfort and associated perceptual distortions.
In 2002 Wilkins found that 5 per cent of children in mainstream
education read 25 per cent more quickly with a coloured overlay of
their choice. My own study found that participants overall read
significantly faster under the coloured (yellow) condition, than the
control condition of white. In fact no participant read faster with
white paper.
I think what made my coursework stand out was that it built on previous
research rather than just replicating it. Use the internet and
books/magazines to expand your idea and provide an original aspect.
Talk to people, e-mail psychologists, anything to spark your
imagination. Make the most of teachers – they are there to help! For
the statistical part you could even ask the maths teacher. And lastly,
the golden rule is good time management! Although some, like myself,
may work better under pressure, leaving coursework until the last day
is not a good idea!
- Kam Khun is now a first-year at Brunel University.
E-mail: [email protected].
(Please note that some pictures may have been removed for copyright reasons)
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