BU Research Blog

August 1, 2019

BU PhD student Peter Wolfensberger has article accepted in Brit J Mental Health Nursing

Centre for Excellence in Learning, international, PG research, Publishing, student research, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Congratulations to FHSS PhD student Peter Wolfensberger whose article ‘Uncertainty in illness among people living with mental ill health – a mental health nursing perspective’ was accepted yesterday by the British Journal of Mental Health Nursing [1]. The paper introduces the concept of ‘uncertainty in illness’, which is a well-known concept in health care literature and a considerable volume of research has investigated how people adapt to different health conditions and how the concept of uncertainty in illness relates to those populations. However, while there is substantial literature focusing on coping strategies and personal recovery, there is a paucity of research about uncertainty in illness among people living with mental ill health.

This paper therefore, explores uncertainty in illness among mental health nurses and to provide an understanding of its relevance to people living with mental ill health. The paper concludes that even though mental health nursing does not directly address uncertainty, the concept and its implications need to be considered and raised further among mental health professionals in order to improve support for people living with mental ill health in their process of personal recovery.

This paper originated from Peter’s PhD research on insights into mental health nursing in Switzerland, which has had input from Prof Fran Biley (before he passed away) and Dr. Zoe Sheppard (before she moved to her new job in Dorchester). His current BU supervisors are: Dr. Sarah Thomas and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen and his Swiss supervisor is Prof. Sabine Hahn (Berner Fachhochschule/ Bern University of Applied Sciences).

Reference:

Wolfensberger P. Thomas, S., Sheppard, Z., Hahn, S, van Teijlingen, E. ‘Uncertainty in illness among people living with mental ill health – a mental health nursing perspective’ British Journal of Mental Health Nursing (Accepted)

July 18, 2019

EDULEARN held in the beautiful city of Palma (on Love Island!): Assoc Prof Jacqui Taylor presents paper and poster

Centre for Excellence in Learning, conferences, staff profile pages Jacqui Taylor

I recently presented a paper and poster at the EDULEARN19 Conference. The paper reported a study which measured different elements of psychological literacy in students across five different disciplines. Sarah Coady, a voluntary Psychology Research Assistant, helped me with some of the data analysis and for this work she won a BU co-creation Award in May. Also, I presented a poster with the title ‘Psychological literacy for all’, to show how psychological literacy is relevant for students of all disciplines. Both papers are published by IATED in the Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies.

July 2, 2019

Research Capacity Building in Nepal: 600 reads

Centre for Excellence in Learning, international, Knowledge Exchange, open access, Publishing, Training, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

A few times a month ResearchGate alerts me that another paper has reached a miles stone of so having been read some many times. Today the ResearchGate message is about 600 reads for our paper ‘Research Methods Coverage in Medical and Health Science Curricula in Nepal’. [1] This paper was a report on research methods teaching in health-related Higher Education (HE) courses in the health and medical field in Nepal. This paper originates from a DelPHE (Round 4), British Council award. Our study ‘Partnership on Improving Access to Research Literature for HE Institutions in Nepal’ (PARI Initiative) was a collaboration between the oldest university in Nepal, namely Tribhuvan University and two UK university of which BU was one. A further paper from the PARI Initiative was published a year later. [2] The lead author of both papers in BU Visiting Faculty Prof Padam Simkhada, who is Professor of International Public Health at the Public Health Institute at Liverpool John Moores University.

The Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is a full Open Access journal which means anybody across the globe can access it for free. The Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is part of Nepal Journals Online (NepJOL) a service established by INASP in 2007, which provides online publication of Nepali journals.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

References:

Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Pokharel, T., Devkota, B., Pathak, R.S. (2013) Research Methods Coverage in Medical & Health Science Curricula in Nepal, Nepal Journal Epidemiology 3(3): 253-258. www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/9185
Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Devkota, B., Pathak, R.S., Sathian, B. (2014) Accessing research literature: A mixed-method study of academics in Higher Education Institutions in Nepal, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(4): 405-14. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/11375

June 23, 2019

CEL Co-Creation Award- BSc Marketing Students

BU Challenges, Centre for Excellence in Learning, Funding opportunities, Fusion, Student Engagement, student research sashraf

Following a competitive bidding process, Emma Keene and Julia Karol (BSc Marketing, final year students) have been successfully awarded this year ‘staff student co-creation award’. Emma is awarded for the project’ The contour generation’ which looks into the negative impact of social media on millennial’s mental health. Emma is mentored by Samreen Ashraf.
Whereas Julia’s project, “The snob effect” looks into the impact of Instagram influencers on the consumption of luxury fashion”. Julia has worked under the supervision of Dr. Elvira Bolat.
Congratulations to both the winners!

June 7, 2019

Can sustainability be taught?

Centre for Excellence in Learning kthompson

At the FoM ‘Sustainability Symposium’ yesterday, we explored what sustainability means for teaching and learning.

Sustainability is high on the list of priorities for BU, with KPIs for aligning all courses and research with one or more of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the launch of a Strategic Investent Area for ‘Sustainability, Low-Carbon Technology and Material Science’ last week. Yesterday an audience of academics, students, professional services colleagues and external practitioners came together to better understand the crises facing humanity today.

Gwyn Jones, Director of Association of Sustainability Practitioners, argued for sustainability to be viewed as the outcome of conscious thinking. Accordingly, sustainability is experienced and practised rather than learnt in a classroom and is enacted as a mindset.

Four mindsets have been identified and our challenge is to move society and our learners towards the top right quadrant of conscious awareness.

The question we asked was ‘What does extinction mean for business?’ It became clear that the question is relevant not only to the Business School, but for all disciplines at BU as indicated by a comment from one participant “I found it really interesting and frankly rather scary (and I’m informed) … I’m keen to try to do something similar [in my Faculty] and be active in this agenda more broadly” (FC).

Most models of business are based on assumptions that value profit and growth above all else. Many of these models were developed during the industrial revolution and are now contributing to the destruction of our environment and society. According to Gwyn, those who claim to have answers to sustainability, don’t understand the problem.

We discussed new business models and case studies that are based on understandings of purpose and decision-making that balances competing priorities. One student who was with us for the day commented “I am very excited to interact with all the bright minds in the room discussing sustainability … it was a great day for me” (Sacha, MBA student).

So, what does this mean for programmes and pedagogy? We can no longer rely solely on text books because we are only just starting to uncover the questions we need to ask. Understanding how we can live sustainably with ‘enough for everyone, forever’ has not been addressed before and we do not have answers yet. We need to be comfortable asking difficult questions and seeking answers in novel ways. Social learning is one approach being used to develop new concepts. Dr Karen Thompson and Dr Nigel Williams have been collaborating with practitioners to ask novel questions and develop new resources for education, research and practice of Responsible Project Management.

An argument made by Karen is that sustainability should not be seen as an ‘add on’ to the curriculum, rather it should be used as a lens through which we view all aspects of our discipline.

Experiential learning will be important for developing a sustainability mindset among learners. ‘Living Labs’ are recognised in BU2025 and can be expected to play a useful role for both education and research in the future. We need to develop learners’ sense of agency and confidence that they can make a difference in the world. Virtual reality may have a role to play in developing the capabilities for managing more responsibly. Lastly, we need to encourage our graduates to become advocates for better decision-making in the organisations they will work in.

For further information, or for advice about running your own sustainability event, please contact Dr Karen Thompson or Professor Janet Dickinson, both from Faculty of Management.

March 3, 2019

Interdisciplinary and REF2021

BRIAN, Centre for Excellence in Learning, international, Knowledge Exchange, open access, Publishing, Research assessment, Research Integritiy, Training, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Over the past decades interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary research has grown in popularity. REF2021 promises that all types of research shall be assessed on a fair and equal basis, including interdisciplinary and collaborative research. New to REF 2021 compared to REF2014 is the Interdisciplinary Research Advisory Panel (IDAP) which has been established to advise the REF team and panel chairs on interdisciplinary research. Furthermore, REF2021 will: (1) appoint at least two members to specifically oversee the assessment of interdisciplinary research in each UoA (Unit of Assessment) to ensure equitable assessment; (2) allow universities to flag-up outputs in the submission system with an ‘interdisciplinary identifier’; and (3) require an discrete section in the environment template on the submitting UoA’s structures to support interdisciplinary research.

Many academics from all disciplines can at some point benefit from working with other scholars from other disciplines. Interdisciplinary research can bring new insights and understanding across disciplinary boundaries. Novel interdisciplinary research can transcend disciplinary boundaries to address sophisticated and so-called wicked problems in society. We would argue that some disciplines are more open to interdisciplinary approaches, and we would argue that the discipline of Public Health as a multi-faceted discipline is probably the most interdisciplinary of all.

Having decades of research experience between us we also recognize that there can be difficulties arising from researchers trained in different individual disciplines trying to work together. We have highlighted some of these issues which interdisciplinary research in Public Health needs to consider and, where necessary, address before they become barriers in an article published this month in Health Prospect [1]. In this Open Access article we remind the reader that doing interdisciplinary research is not an easy option. Interdisciplinary research may involve a mixed-methods approach and could be underpinned by conflicting, and according to some incommensurable, research philosophies.

We argue, for example that in an interdisciplinary team topic specialists face potentially challenging demands on their range of skills and knowledge. For example, sociologists are required to have a broad knowledge at hand to represent the social science perspective in a study of a disease they know little about, designed by clinicians with a health services research outcome in mind. We also suggest that Public Health researchers have to be versed in both qualitative and quantitative methods. Working multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary means that they have to be able to understand the methods of the epidemiologists (e.g. ‘interrupted -time series’ or ‘nested-case control studies’) and those of health service researchers (e.g. ‘double-blind randomised controlled trials’) and have the whole range of qualitative methods at your command to improve the quality of the overall study.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, Dr. Pramod Regmi & Dr. Nirmal Aryal

(all based in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences)

Dr. Pratik Adhikary &Prof. Padam Simkhada

(both BU Visiting Faculty)

Reference:

van Teijlingen, E., Regmi, P., Adhikary, P., Aryal, N., Simkhada, P. (2019). Interdisciplinary Research in Public Health: Not quite straightforward. Health Prospect, 18(1), 4-7.

February 25, 2019

BU contributes to International Conference in India.

Centre for Excellence in Learning, international, Publishing, Training, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

This past weekend saw BU Visiting Professor Padam Simkhada, who is a Professor of International Public Health in the Public Health Institute at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), delivering the keynote speech in an International Conference on Mixed-Methods Research (ICMMR 2019). His presentation at the conference, held at the Mahatma Gandhi University in Kerala (India), was held on Saturday. The next day (Sunday 24th February) the two Bournemouth University academics Dr. Pramod Regmi and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen and facilitated a session on academic publishing under the heading “Meet the editors” via Skype. Over 200 delegates from 10 countries, mainly from India and other South Asian countries participated in the conference.

BU focuses its global collaborations on three geographical areas, one of these is the Indian sub-continent. Connect India is BU’s strategic Hub of Practice for the Indian sub-continent, bringing together a community of researchers, educators, practitioners and students to collaborate with colleagues in India and Nepal.

February 15, 2019

Descent or dissent? Social work education in post-Brexit UK

Centre for Excellence in Learning, international, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Congratulations to Prof. Jonathan Parker on the publication of his article ‘Descent or dissent? A future of social work education in the UK post-Brexit‘ in the European Journal of Social Work. In true European style the journal also gives the title in Italian: Discesa o dissenso? Il futuro dell’istruzione nel settore dei servizi sociali nel Regno Unito dopo la Brexit.

February 8, 2019

Cafe Scientifique: How can Virtual Reality be used to support our students’ learning?

Centre for Excellence in Learning, Knowledge Exchange, PG research, Public engagement ballen

Education is changing – but what does this look like in practice? What does the future of learning hold for students? At Bournemouth University we are responding to research that considers how teachers of the future will work with their classes.

Drawing upon examples from fields as diverse as archaeology and nursing, Professor Debbie Holley, P rofessor Liz Falconer and Heidi Singleton (PhD Student) from the Centre for Excellence in Learning(CEL) showcased recent innovations to help support student learning, both inside and outside their physical classroom.

A Wicked Challenge

“It’s our wicked challenge”, Debbie told the BU Cafe Scientifique audience on Tuesday evening, as she outlined the current lay of the land in terms of Virtual Reality (VR) and Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) in higher education, emphasising that it is an educators’ duty to offer digital opportunities to 21^stCentury students. Debbie explained, how although technology can be of great benefit, the “wicked challenge” is defining and addressing the significant challenges impeding TEL adoption in higher education.

Time to engage

After discussing their work, the CEL team, supported by BU Learning Technologists Stephen Pyne and David Hunt got interactive, giving the Cafe Sci audience the opportunity to engage with the Google Cardboard headsets, encouraging them to try out different virtual reality scenarios.

Virtual Avebury

It was fascinating to hear how Liz and her team had used Lidar data to simulate how Avebury might have looked and sounded circa 2,300 BCE in an immersive 3D virtual reality environment. Liz reported findings from her large scale project which was conducted with members of the public at the Avebury site Not only did people enjoy visiting the VR Avebury, but for some it brought out an emotional reaction as they felt they had experienced some of what it would have been like to have visited the ancient site when it was still complete. One of the participants said; “I felt completely immersed in the landscape. It was really interesting to see the difference between the real stones outside and the simulation. The difference between the sizes of the banks and ditches was particularly striking!” Liz concluded with her favourite finding; that women over the age of 60 were the third most likely group to enjoy gaming (mostly on their mobile phones). It reminds us all not to pre-judge what we think people will find enjoyable and useful as a learning experience.

VR Deteriorating Patient

Heidi explained and demonstrated her research around VR Deteriorating Patient, a computer simulator that trains students how to nurse a patient who is suffering from Diabetic Hypoglycaemia

Working with CEL, HSS and in particular Dr Janet James, Heidi is conducting an RCT to compare the VR training exercise with traditional teaching methods. The initial findings are very positive, with students reporting that it helps to bridge the theory practice gap, some saying; “You can practice and it doesn’t matter if you make wrong decisions. It is a safe environment.” “It will stick in my mind better. I will use it again to revise before the exam.” “It helps me to visualise the learning.”

If you’re interested in finding out more about VR, AR or 360 Video you can contact the CEL Team @cel_bu

The next Café Scientifique takes place on Tuesday 5 March where we’ll be hearing from Dr Alexios Mylonas who will be discussing whether popular browsers (such as Firefox, Chrome) for desktops and mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablets) protect their users from trackers that use Web Storage, Web SQL Database, and IndexedDB.

If you have any questions, please do get in touch with the Public Engagement Team – publicengagement@bournemouth.ac.uk, you can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Plus, why not send us a request to be added to our Public Engagement mailing list and be the first to hear about our research events and activities.

January 29, 2019

Expanding BU’s India links

Centre for Excellence in Learning, conferences, international, Publishing, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Dr. Pramod Regmi and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen (both in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences) have been invited to join the scientific committee of the International Conference on Mixed Methods Research [ICMMR-2019]. This year’s ICMMR conference will be held in the School of Behavioural Sciences at the Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam (India) on February 22-24, 2019. The two BU academics will run an online panel discussion session on academic publishing under the heading “Meet the editors.” The advantage of such online session is that BU academic don’t have to travel to India saving time and money as well as the environment. This has benefits for their own work-live balance as well as their carbon footprint.

BU focuses its global collaborations on three geographical areas, one of these is the Indian sub-continent. Connect India is BU’s strategic Hub of Practice for the Indian sub-continent, bringing together a community of researchers, educators, practitioners and students at Bournemouth University to collaborate with colleagues in India and Nepal.

January 27, 2019

New textbook for medical students

Centre for Excellence in Learning, international, Publishing, Training, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Experts from universities across the UK have contributed to a new edition of a best-selling textbook which is out this month. This is the fourth edition of Psychology and Sociology Applied to Medicine which is a jargon-free 179-page introduction to psychology and sociology for medical students (and other health care students). The book is published by one of the largest academic publishers in the world, Elsevier in its series of Illustrated Colour Texts.

Seventy-three academics contributed chapters to the book which was edited by psychologist Prof. Gerry Humphris (University of St. Andrews) and sociologist Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen (Bournemouth University). The contributors are discipline and topic experts and come mainly from the UK but some are from further afield such as Ireland and Australia. Compared to the third edition this latest edition has 45 new authors, who contribute the most up-to-date knowledge on classical psychological and sociological concepts and issues. All chapters have been updated and several have been renamed and revamped to reflect changes in society, and three new ones have been added. The editors are very grateful to Catherine Calderwood, Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, for writing the Foreword.

Teaching behavioural and social sciences to students is of vital importance for good health care in the future. This textbook covers topics across the life cycle from birth to death. A range of concepts and issues such as health screening, personality & health, quality of life, self-care, and anxiety are explained in an easy to understand fashion. This makes the textbook excellent introductory text as well as an essential revision tool for students. This textbook for medical students is Bournemouth University’s latest contribution to medical training.

Reference:

van Teijlingen, E. & Humphris, G. (Eds.) (2019)Psychology & Sociology Applied to Medicine: An Illustrated Colour Text (4^th Edn), Edinburgh: Elsevier The book is available as eBook [ISBN: 9780702062995] and as paperback [ISBN: 9780702062988].

January 21, 2019

Reflections on doing interdisciplinary research

Centre for Excellence in Learning, international, Knowledge Transfer, open access, Public engagement, Publishing, REF Subjects, Research assessment, Research Integritiy, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Conducting interdisciplinary or even transdisciplinary research has become more to the fore in many academic fields. As a result of the steady rise of multidisciplinary research It has been made more explicit in REF 2021 [1]. For example, REF 2021 UoA 2 Public Health, Health Services & Primary Care “recognises the breadth and diverse range of single, multidisciplinary and/or multi-professional research across public health, health services and primary care”, whilst UoA22 Anthropology & Development Studies states that its submissions “can be multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary and may combine social science with other disciplines”.

However, doing multidisciplinary research is not without its problems (and barriers). In a paper accepted today we reflect on some of these issues [2]. The co-authors are Bournemouth University’s Dr. Pramod Regmi, Dr. Nirmal Ayral and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, and BU Visiting Professor Padam Simkhada (Public Health Institute, Liverpool John Moores University) and BU graduate Dr. Pratik Adhikary (Green Tara Nepal). We all are Public Health researchers, with very different educational backgrounds and training, reflecting the diversity of and interdisciplinarity in the field. Several of us have a first degree in Education or Health Education, but one has a first degree in Sociology. Whilst four of the five authors have Master degree in Public Health and/or Health Promotion, two have a Master in Education. Most of us have a Ph.D. in Public Health, but again one of us has a Ph.D. in Sociology. Our paper ‘Interdisciplinary Research in Public Health: Not quite straightforward’ has been accepted by the journal Health Prospect [2]. The advantage of this journal, which is part of the NepJOL family is that it is Open Access and hence freely available for anybody working in Public Health across the globe.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)

Reference:

REF 2021 (2018) Consultation on the draft panel criteria and working methods https://www.ref.ac.uk/media/1013/consultation-on-the-draft-panel-criteria-and-working-methods-ref-2018_02.pdf
van Teijlingen, E., Regmi, P.R., Adhikary, P., Aryal, N., Simkhada, P. (2019) Interdisciplinary Research in Public Health: Not quite straightforward, Health Prospect (forthcoming)

January 16, 2019

Beautiful Work Challenge: Podcast on Birth

Centre for Excellence in Learning, international, Public engagement, Publishing, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

A few months ago Dr. Ann Luce (Faculty of Media & Communication) and I were interviewed by the US-based organisation Catalysta TM on the issue of the portrayal of childbirth in the media. This week Catalysta released the podcast which is available here!

The online interviews with a journalist and podcast producer in the USA was based on our publications around the topic, such as our highly cited BMC Pregnancy& Childbirth paper ‘“Is it realistic?” the portrayal of pregnancy and childbirth in the media ‘ [1] and our 2017 book Midwifery, Childbirth and the Media published by Palgrave Macmillan [2], as well as papers in UK midwifery journals [3-4].

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

References

Luce, A., Cash, M., Hundley, V., Cheyne, H., van Teijlingen, E., Angell, C. (2016) “Is it realistic?” the portrayal of pregnancy and childbirth in the media, BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 16: 40
Luce, A., Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E. (Eds.) (2017) Midwifery, Childbirth and the Media, London: Palgrave Macmillan [ISBN: 978-3-319-63512-5].
Hundley, V., Duff, E., Dewberry, J., Luce, A., van Teijlingen, E. (2014) Fear in childbirth: are the media responsible? MIDIRS Midwifery Digest 24(4): 444-447.
Hundley, V., Luce, A., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) Do midwives need to be more media savvy? MIDIRS Midwifery Digest 25(1):5-10

January 12, 2019

Developing our partnership in Nepal

Centre for Excellence in Learning, Fusion, international, Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement, Student Engagement Edwin van Teijlingen

Last year BU signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) in Kathmandu, Nepal. This week Dr. Bibha Simkhada, Lecturer in Nursing, Dr. Shanti Shanker, Lecturer (Academic) in Psychology, and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) delivered one-day workshop on qualitative and mixed-methods research approaches. The workshop was very well attended by MSc students, not just from MMIHS, but also those from several other colleges and universities.

MMIHS is part of BU’s latest bids for ERASMUS Higher Education Student & Staff Mobility between Programme and Partner Countries (Key Action 107) – International Credit Mobility. Bournemouth University’s strategic plan known as BU2015 has as one of its pillars our desire to “enrich society by having a significant impact on challenges world-wide“. Through Fusion BU aims to (a) have a positive impact world-wide on the challenges facing society; (b) ensure staff, students and graduates enrich society as active citizens in their communities; and (c) strengthen our shared impact through worldwide partnerships. Expanding and developing the existing BU-MMIHS partnership is a excellent stepping stone for the ERASMUS application.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

November 26, 2018

Welcome to the Carnival!

Centre for Excellence in Learning, Festival of Learning, Public engagement, Women's Academic Network Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

Last year the Women’s Academic Network hosted ‘Project Vagina’, an interactive art exhibition by the feminist art collective, Red Luna, who have since reformed into The Leggy Blondes, a creative, visual and performative group, led by Rebekah Brown and Megan Juniper, whose work features at art exhibitions, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, schools and universities.

Student feedback from last year’s event was so positive that they had to be brought back for an even bigger bash at BU. This year the Leggy Blondes strutted their stuff as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Sciences public engagement event, the Carnival of Sex, Sexuality & Gender. The Carnival was designed to be a fun, tongue-in-cheek pedagogic event using a mixture of subversive, merry mayhem and serious scholarship. The topic carries huge social relevance in contemporary society where gender has become deeply politicised – interpreted both as a source of liberation but at the same time problematised and angst ridden.

Badging this WAN event with The Centre for Excellence in Learning (CEL) and Athena Swan, the morning was devoted to the amazing, revamped ‘Vagina’ artefact itself, party games and objects d’art to explore, and a ‘Banging and Screwing’ cabaret featuring cheeky workmen – all thanks to the ‘Blondes’.

The afternoon consisted of a Q&A panel discussion, chaired by Professor Sara Ashencaen Crabtree. Dr Katie Lonie from the University of Sidney discussed her research work on young women’s political engagement. Dr Conor Doaks from the University of Bristol elucidated his area of expertise: masculinities and culture. WAN colleagues, Dr Shelley Thompson and Dr Paola Vizcaino-Suárez made up the panel quarter by presenting their work on firstly: women, STEMM, news and popular culture, followed by gender-based violence and tourism.

Over lunch participants crowded around Mr Aaron Lownie, Japanese Shibari artiste, demonstrating this esoteric, erotic art form of graceful, sedate, head-scratching complexity. Following this staff from CEL led an arts-based workshop. Curie Scott and Anne Quinney run workshops on using creative methods in research and education practice. They invited participants to produce an individual or group creative artefact based on a theme from the day. On hand were dressing up clothes, modelling clay, magazines, recycled material, paper, fabric, sequins, and pipe cleaners (to name a few!). The open space and time helped people to create visually provoking images. The dressing up box was especially well used!

The Carnival theme was closed in style by the amazing Norm, ‘Mr Balloon Man’, now a regular to BU, whose fantastic and transitory works-of-art were hugely popular with participants and carried off protectively into the dark, rainy, windy night following a colourful day of diverse public pedagogy.

Finally, many thanks to colleagues for their support and help, including Dr Lorraine Brown, Professor Jonathan Parker, Dr Frances Hawkhead, Genna del Rosa, Amanda Lazar and Beverley Allen.

November 15, 2018

Congratulations to Denyse King

Centre for Excellence in Learning, international, PG research, Publishing, student research, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Congratulations to Denyse King, who is currently attending the Future Technologies Conference, FTC 2018; Vancouver, BC; Canada (15-16 November). Her conference paper ‘NoObesity apps – From approach to finished app’ has been published in Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing [1]. Denyse is part of the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMHP) where she is a Lecturer (Academic) in Midwifery based at BU’s campus in Portsmouth ,

Obesity is still a growing public health problem in the UK and many healthcare workers find it challenging to have a discussion with service users about this sensitive topic. They also feel they are not competent to provide the relevant heath advice and are seeking easily accessible, evidence-based, mobile health learning (mHealth). mHealth applications (apps) such as the Professional NoObesity and Family NoObesity (due for release late 2018), have been designed to: support families with making sustainable positive behaviour changes to their health and well-being, ease pressure on practitioners’ overweight and obesity care related workloads, as well as to support the education of professionals, students and service users. This paper describes the process of designing the apps from the inception of the idea, through the stages of research, app builds and testing. The processes of collaborative working to design and develop the apps to meet the needs of both service users and health professionals will also be reflected upon. Childhood obesity is an complex problem and whilst it is recognised that the NoObesity apps cannot singlehandedly resolve this health crisis, it is proposed that they can support families to identify and reduce the barriers that prevent them from living healthier, happier lives.

Reference:

King D., Rahman E., Potter A., van Teijlingen E. (2019) NoObesity Apps – From Approach to Finished App. In: Arai K., Bhatia R., Kapoor S. (eds) Proceedings of the Future Technologies Conference (FTC) 2018. FTC 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 881. Springer, Cham, pp. 1145-1157.

November 5, 2018

CEMP’s Media Education Summit in Hong Kong

Centre for Excellence in Learning, international, PG research, Public engagement, student research jmcdougall

CEMP convened the 12th Media Education Summit in Hong Kong last week. It was the biggest MES so far, with 170 delegates from 27 countries attending at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Feedback from delegates has been overwhelmingly positive – see the MESHK18 twitter thread – including invitations from prospective hosts in Asia. North America and central Europe for future years and several CEMP Ed-Doc enquiries have already been made by delegates from Hong Kong, China and Japan. Here are two examples:

I would like to thank you once again for a wonderful time in Hong Kong. For me it was a learning experience like no other, an experience that i shall never forget. (Doctoral student, Malta).

First of all, thank you so much for producing such a lovely conference for 170 participants from 27 countries including me.I know how hard you have been working on the preparation and facilitation. Few people can do such matter. Take a sound rest and nice tea of Hong Kong, please. (Professor, Tokyo)

Researchers who presented have been invited to submit their work to Media Practice and Education, the journal edited in CEMP and BU doctoral graduate Marketa Zezuokova teamed up with South Island School to run this year’s youth strand, concluding with the school students forming a ‘flipped panel’ to field questions from the academics.

All the keynotes, the Youth MES video and Karen Fowler-Watt’s film with Fergal Keane will be available on the CEMP site in due course.

MES is a big project and the team at the event (Karen Fowler-Watt, Mark Readman, Annamaria Neag and Julian McDougall) are grateful to the people who make it happen at BU – Laura Hampshaw and Lokesh Sivakumar.

Watch this space for an announcement soon about the next MES!!

November 1, 2018

Café Scientifique: Facing our Future Self

Centre for Excellence in Learning, Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement cscott

Think about your future ageing or old age.

What thoughts and feelings come to mind?

At the recent October Cafe Scientifique event, Dr Curie Scott from the Centre for Excellence in Learning asked a packed audience at Café Boscanova in Boscombe, Bournemouth these questions.

Ageing populations

As a trained medical doctor and educator of health professional students, Curie became aware of the impact of ageing populations. In 2017, global population trends reversed: there are now more people over 65 years old than under five years old (United Nations, 2013). Nearly one in five people currently alive in the UK will get to their hundredth birthday (Department for Work and Pensions, 2011).

We are ageing. But we remain uncomfortable about talking about it.

Using drawing to discuss ageing

For her research, she was interested in whether drawing might help us talk about our future. She invited health professional students and people over 60 to a specially designed Drawing Programme to think about their future ageing. This was a four week expressive mark-making workshop-based programme. Examples of drawings were on display at the cafe. Of the five drawings linked to ageing, the masks (below) were the final drawing as it was the most personal.

Challenging the accepted Cultural ‘truths’ about ageing

It is clear that ‘older people’ are an ‘othered’ group. That is, we want to separate ourselves from being labelled ‘old’. The Drawing Programme facilitated openness and a willingness to consider the myriad ‘what-ifs’ of ageing. Participants noted ‘truths’ or ‘assumptions’ of ageing which they had absorbed from their surrounding Culture ageing. These were predominantly negative:

Ageing is relative, dependent on one’s age
Ageing is about decline with core and peripheral losses
With ageing, one is concealed and outcast from society
With increasing age, one is less valued
Ageing as a discussion topic is taboo
Ageing is ugly and is especially harsh to women

These myths echoed responses by those at Café Scientifique. Comments about the future included concerns about ill health, dependency, and loneliness. Positive aspects were about greater confidence, time to enjoy leisurely pursuits and have more time with family and friends.

Returning to the research, over the three month study period, participants interrogated their assumptions. They disentangled from dominant negative threads and chose new ways of being. They described some powerful shifts in thinking and behaviour. They shared a stronger internal sense of agency and choice – not that ageing would just ‘happen’ but that we all have choices we can make for and about our future ageing.

At the deepest level of consideration, participants could visualise themselves, and indeed accept, that they were likely to become old. They took control of the time they had left. At 73 years old, Veronica (not her real name) declared that the study propelled her into fulfilling her lifelong dream of playing the saxophone. With a strong family history of deaths in their sixties, Eva (not her real name) responded by changing her health behaviour and asking for health screening tests.

Drawing helped adults to think, explore, and articulate on the emotive topic of their future ageing. Curie ended with a line from the poem ‘Snow’ by poet laureate Carol Ann Dufffy which is carved on a stone in Durlston Country Park.

If you are interested in knowing more about the drawing workshops or perceptions of ageing, contact me at cscott@bournemouth.ac.uk

The next Cafe Scientifique by Xun He is on next week, Tues 6th Nov, on “Working together: When your mind is in my mind”

References

Department for Work and Pensions, 2011. Number of Future Centenarians by Age Group [online] Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/223173/centenarians_by_age_groups.pdf

United Nations, 2013. World Population Prospects: The 2012 Revision. United Nations Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Available at: https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2012_HIGHLIGHTS.pdf

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