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Group

Education, Motivation and Learning Research Group (EDMAL)

Unit(s) of assessment: Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience; Education

Research theme(s): Health Innovation

School: School of Social Sciences

Overview

The Education, Motivation and Learning (EDMAL) Group is part of the Centre for Research in Language, Education and Developmental Inequalities.

The aim of the Education, Motivation and Learning (EDMAL) Group is to promote and support research examining the experiences of students across the educational lifespan, with a view to understanding how to improve their learning and motivation.

Currently, we have four research sub-groups:

  • Test-Anxiety Group (TAG) which examines individual differences and predictors of anxiety in school and higher education
  • Parental Motivational Messaging (PMM) which examines how students respond to their parent' motivation messages
  • Digital Skills Group (DiSK) which examines the types of individuals who most worry about their ability to engage with online technology.
  • Flourish, which examines how we can enhance the mental health of students to help facilitate their own success.

The aim of all the groups is to understand the nature of the pedagogic interventions that not only reduce anxiety, but enhance mental health and improve academic performance.

EDMAL and TILT partnership

TILT Logo

As much of the work in EDMAL covers scholarship and practice, we have partnered with the TILT Practice and Scholarship Group, Student Motivation and Engagement (SME). Members of EDMAL and SME will attend the same meetings with a view to optimising your scholarship, practice and research opportunities and ambitions.

Published work

Our sub-groups

Poster presentation for the EDMAL research group

Test Anxiety Group (TAG)

The TAG research sub-group is led by Dr Caroline Ford, Dr Lucy Justice, and Dr Richard Remedios.

Students experience anxiety when they engage in a range of tasks, and especially those where they have low confidence. Evidence consistently shows that low confidence is a strong predictor of current motivation, and ultimately academic performance.

Our current research focuses on the domain of statistics and mathematics because these subjects are the ones where students typically experience the lowest confidence and the highest anxiety.

We are running longitudinal studies to first identify the types of students most at risk, and then to see how their anxiety changes across a module.

What are we interested in researching?

The TAG group is interested in understanding the types of students who experience anxiety. We want to know about which types of students are anxious, why they are anxious, what they anxious about, and how their anxiety can be reduced.

Further resources

Publications

Outten, B., Ford, C., & Remedios, R. (2024) What is the relationship between Academic buoyancy, Self-efficacy and statistics anxiety. The Psychology of Education Review, 48(2). doi.org/10.53841/bpsper.2024.48.2.17

 

How to motivate students during exam time, according to psychologists.

Parental Motivational Messages (PMM)

The PMM sub-group is led by Dr Richard Remedios.

When studying for high-stakes exams, students receive encouragement from their teachers, but research shows that these teacher messages are received very differently depending on the student (Putwain, Symes, Nicholson & Remedios, 2020).

Moreover, this research shows that students' differential experiences of teacher encouragement go on to influence their subsequent motivations and performance.

What are we interested in researching?

It is not only teachers who encourage students. Students also receive encouragement at home from their caregivers.

What we are keen to examine is the effects of these types of on students, what actual messages parents are giving, whether these messages are different depending on stage of education (primary, secondary, higher education), and the cultural context.

Examples of talks

Digital Skills (DiSK)

The DiSK research sub-group is led by Dr Sarah Buglass and Dr Lucy Justice.

The development and application of key digital skills is fast becoming a ubiquitous requirement with teaching, learning and assessment opportunities increasingly reliant on digital technology.

Furthermore, the emergency response teaching experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for students and teachers to possess a level of digital literacy that stretches far beyond basic word processing and presentation skills.

Whilst these technologies can have huge benefits for learning, we must be cautious in assuming that learners from particular generations have a natural capacity to use these tools to support their learning.

Our current research considers how demographic factors and individual differences can influence digital literacy levels and digital engagement with learning across learners and teaching staff.

What are we interested in researching?

The DiSK group is interested in developing an understanding of the potential enablers and barriers associated with the acquisition of digital literacy.

The sub-group are also keen to explore how student and teaching staff motivations can influence engagement with digital learning opportunities, e.g., online learning for a university course.

Further resources

Beccie Davis- Yates

Beccie Davis-Yates, Sub-Group Lead

Flourish: Enhancing the well-being of students to help facilitate their own success

This sub-group is led by Beccie Davis-Yates.

What are we interested in researching?

Wellbeing is an umbrella term that includes many forms of well-being. Typical categories are emotional (positive/negative affect), social (feeling connected), psychological (e.g., adaptive motivation) and physical (e.g., feeling healthy).  Well-being is also related to existential issues such as spiritual well-being e.g., having a meaning and purpose in the world.

The Flourish sub-group of EDMAL supports research across all pathways i.e., practice, scholarship and research, to examine and enhance the experiences of students across all form of well-being.

The sub-group is led by Beccie Davis-Yates (Beccie.davis-yates@ntu.ac.uk) so do contact Beccie if you are interested in joining this group.

Project Flourish are or have been involved in the following:

Enhancing Wellbeing During Educational Transitions: As part of Beccie's work within the EDMAL, she is developing and delivering a series of wellbeing-focused workshops to support children, parents, and school staff during key educational transitions. Details in this document.

Supporting the Educational and Wellbeing Outcomes at Nottingham Forest FC: NTU Psychology is proud to work in collaboration with Nottingham Forest Football Club and the Premier League to support the educational and psychological development of young players. Our work focuses on enhancing the overall football experience through a trauma-informed, person-centred approach that values both performance and personal growth. More details in this document.

Other outputs by Beccie

Outputs by Stephen Eccles

As a passionate advocate of student mental health, Stephen Eccles created Flourish for EDMAL. Stephen has moved on from NTU but his research focused on student withdrawal and the role that mental health plays within this transition. His longitudinal data is not often captured and the hope is that is can be used to make meaningful change in higher education. His WONKE blog (below) captures his passion.

Related staff

Publications

Related Groups and Centres

The Education, Motivation and Learning (EDMAL) Group is part of the Centre for Research in Language, Education and Developmental Inequalities.

Centre for Research in Language, Education and Developmental Inequalities (CLEDI)

Theme:

Units of assessment: Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience; Education