Educational psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of human learning. The study of learning processes, from both cognitive and behavioral perspectives, allows researchers to understand individual differences in intelligence, cognitive development, affect, motivation, self-regulation, and self-concept, as well as their role in learning. The field of educational psychology relies heavily on quantitative methods, including testing and measurement, to enhance educational activities related to instructional design, classroom management, and assessment, which serve to facilitate learning processes in various educational settings across the lifespan.
Qualitative psychological research is psychological research that employs qualitative methods.
Qualitative research is a type of research that aims to gather and analyse non-numerical (descriptive) data in order to gain an understanding of individuals' social reality, including understanding their attitudes, beliefs, and motivation. This type of research typically involves in-depth interviews, focus groups, or observations in order to collect data that is rich in detail and context. Qualitative research is often used to explore complex phenomena or to gain insight into people's experiences and perspectives on a particular topic. It is particularly useful when researchers want to understand the meaning that people attach to their experiences or when they want to uncover the underlying reasons for people's behavior. Qualitative methods include ethnography, grounded theory, discourse analysis, and interpretative phenomenological analysis. Qualitative research methods have been used in sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, communication studies, social work, folklore, educational research, information science and software engineering research.
The British Psychological Society (BPS) is a representative body for psychologists and psychology in the United Kingdom.
Community psychology is concerned with the community as the unit of study. This contrasts with most psychology which focuses on the individual. Community psychology also studies the community as a context for the individuals within it, and the relationships of the individual to communities and society. Community psychologists seek to understand the functioning of the community, including the quality of life of persons within groups, organizations and institutions, communities, and society. They aim to enhance the quality of life through collaborative research and action.
Health psychology is the study of psychological and behavioral processes in health, illness, and healthcare. The discipline is concerned with understanding how psychological, behavioral, and cultural factors contribute to physical health and illness. Psychological factors can affect health directly. For example, chronically occurring environmental stressors affecting the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, cumulatively, can harm health. Behavioral factors can also affect a person's health. For example, certain behaviors can, over time, harm or enhance health. Health psychologists take a biopsychosocial approach. In other words, health psychologists understand health to be the product not only of biological processes but also of psychological, behavioral, and social processes.
Frank L. Schmidt was an American psychology professor at the University of Iowa known for his work in personnel selection and employment testing. Schmidt was a researcher in the area of industrial and organizational psychology with the most number of publications in the two major journals in the 1980s. In the 1990s he was the 4th most published researcher in Journal of Applied Psychology (JAP) and Personnel Psychology (PP), the two principal publications in the field of industrial-organizational psychology. He was also winner of the first Dunnette Prize, the most prestigious lifetime achievement award given by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology "to honor living individuals whose work has significantly expanded knowledge of the causal significance of individual differences through advanced research, development, and/or application".
Mahzarin Rustum Banaji FBA is an American psychologist of Indian origin at Harvard University, known for her work popularizing the concept of implicit bias in regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, and other factors.
Susan Fiona Dorinthea Michie is a British academic, clinical psychologist, and professor of health psychology, director of The Centre for Behaviour Change and head of The Health Psychology Research Group, all at University College London. She is also an advisor to the British Government via the SAGE advisory group on matters concerning behavioural compliance with government regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, she was appointed Chair of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Technical Advisory Group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health.
Mark van Vugt is a Dutch evolutionary psychologist who holds a professorship in evolutionary psychology and work and organizational psychology at the VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Van Vugt has affiliate positions at the University of Oxford, Institute for Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology (ICEA).
May Smith OBE was a British Industrial psychologist from Hulme, Manchester. She received a bachelor's degree in 1903 and later received a Doctor of Science degree in 1930. Throughout her career, she taught at colleges as well as performing important research in the field of industrial psychology. She subjected herself to her own trials in her research on fatigue. She worked alongside other researchers to find the effects of alcohol and opium on efficiency as well as research on telegraphist's cramp. She was an investigator at the Industrial Health Research Board from 1920 to 1944. She held several positions on the executive of the British Psychological Society.
Mark D. Griffiths is an English chartered psychologist focusing in the field of behavioural addictions, namely gambling disorder, gaming addiction, Internet addiction, sex addiction, and work addiction. He is a Professor of Behavioural Addiction at Nottingham Trent University and director of the International Gaming Research Unit. He is the author of five books including Gambling Addiction and its Treatment Within the NHS, Gambling and Gaming Addictions in Adolescence, and Adolescent Gambling. He has also authored over 600 refereed papers, 140+ book chapters and more than 1,500 articles, and has won 15 awards for his research, including a Lifetime Achievement Award For Contributions to the Field of Youth Gambling in 2006 and International Excellence Award For Gambling Research in 2003 and a Lifetime Research Award For Gambling Research in 2013.
The UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences is a Division within the Faculty of Brain Sciences of University College London (UCL) and is located in London, United Kingdom. The Division offers teaching and training and undertakes research in psychology and communication and allied clinical and basic science. It is the largest university psychology department in England.
Andy Field is an English academic currently serving as Professor of Quantitative Methods at the University of Sussex.
Victoria Clarke is a UK-based chartered psychologist and an Associate Professor in Qualitative and Critical Psychology at the University of the West England, Bristol. Her work focuses on qualitative psychology and critical psychology, and her background and training is in the fields of women studies, feminist psychology, LGBTQ psychology, and qualitative methods. She is particularly known for her ongoing collaboration with Professor Virginia Braun around qualitative methods. Braun and Clarke developed a widely cited approach to thematic analysis in 2006 and have published extensively around thematic analysis since then. They have also collaborated on an award-winning qualitative research textbook and more recently have published around the qualitative story completion method with the Story Completion Research Group.
Clive Wilkins is a British figurative artist. He is the author of The Moustachio Quartet, a series of novels that explore perception and the subjective experience of thinking; and with Nicky Clayton is co-founder of the Captured Thought, an arts and science collaboration. He is the first Artist in Residence in the Department of Psychology at The University of Cambridge, a position held since 2012. Wilkins, along with Clayton, was made Honorary Director of Studies and advisor to the China UK Development Centre (CUDC) in 2018 ~ a position he held until 2024. He has been awarded professorships by Nanjing University, Institute of Technology, China (2018), Beijing University of Language and Culture, China (2019), and Hangzhou Diangi University, China (2019). Wilkins was made Co-Director of the Cambridge Centre for the Integration of Science, Technology and Culture (CCISTC) in 2020 ~ a position he held until 2024.
Lucy Yardley is a British psychologist and professor of health psychology based at both the University of Bristol and University of Southampton. She is a senior investigator at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and has a continuing role at the University of Southampton as Director of the LifeGuide Research Programme, and the Behavioural Science theme of the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre.
Coaching psychology is a field of applied psychology that applies psychological theories and concepts to the practice of coaching. Its aim is to increase performance, self-actualization, achievement and well-being in individuals, teams and organisations by utilising evidence-based methods grounded in scientific research. Coaching psychology is influenced by theories in various psychological fields, such as humanistic psychology, positive psychology, learning theory and social psychology.
The School of Education, Communication & Society (ECS) is an academic school within the Faculty of Social Sciences and Public Policy at King's College London. It offers undergraduate, postgraduate, PGCE teacher training and PhD research opportunities in the fields of Education, Linguistics and Social Sciences. The school is known for its teaching and research expertise in science and mathematics education; language, culture and communication; and public policy.
Jane Oakhill is a British cognitive psychologist and expert on the development of reading comprehension. She holds the position of Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Sussex.
