Role
Beccie Davis-Yates is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Nottingham Trent University, where her primary responsibilities include teaching, assessment, module leadership, and curriculum development across undergraduate psychology programmes. She has a particular interest in creating engaging and inclusive learning environments that support student success and professional development.
As a Senior Lecturer, Beccie adopts a distinctive pedagogical approach through the use of Team-Based Learning (TBL), which promotes active engagement, collaboration, and the development of key academic and employability skills. She has also designed and led innovative modules within Early Years education, bringing a neuroscientific perspective to understanding early childhood development while embedding evidence-based teaching practices.
The student experience is central to Beccie's academic practice. As a care leaver who was unable to access higher education until the age of 26, she brings both personal insight and professional commitment to supporting student belonging, engagement, and achievement. She currently serves as Assistant Course Lead for Single Honours Psychology, and contributes to the University's Outreach Team, delivering workshops and activities for post-16 schools and colleges.
Alongside her teaching responsibilities, Beccie is undertaking a PhD exploring the subjective wellbeing of children under the age of eight living with chronic health conditions. Her research seeks to understand the lived experiences of young children, with a particular focus on how children themselves define and experience wellbeing. Through this work, she aims to contribute to child-centred approaches that promote positive outcomes for children and families affected by long-term health conditions.
Beccie is also a Level 5 Trauma-Informed and Mental Health Practitioner, with research and professional interests spanning childhood adversity, resilience, psychological wellbeing, and trauma-informed practice. She is committed to translating research into practical applications that improve outcomes across education, health, and community settings.
Career overview
2023 - present Senior Lecturer - School of Social Sciences: Psychology
2013 – 2023 – Senior Lecturer - School of Social Sciences: Institute of Education Nottingham Trent University
2011 – 2014 Adoption Panel Member
2003 – 2014 Training Manager - KB Recruitment & Training Ltd
2002 –2003 Youth Offending Sessional Worker
1999 - 2001 Young Peoples Support Worker
1998 –1999 Residential Social Worker
Research areas
Beccie is aligned to the EDMAL: Education, Motivation and Learning Group promoting 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 the sub group lead for Flourish: Enhancing the well-being of students to help facilitate their own success
Education, Motivation and Learning Research Group (EDMAL) | Nottingham Trent University
Beccie's research is centred on understanding how trauma, mental health, wellbeing, and relationships shape the experiences of children, young people, and families. Her work is underpinned by a commitment to amplifying lived experience and challenging assumptions that can negatively influence practice, policy, and outcomes across education, healthcare, and community settings.
A key area of her research explores the ways in which parental and educational influences impact children's and young people's mental health and wellbeing. This includes the development of Parental Motivational Messaging (PMM), which examines how students interpret and respond to motivational messages received from parents, and how parental expectations and educational pressures can influence wellbeing, resilience, engagement, and psychological outcomes.
Beccie's primary research focus is her PhD, which investigates the subjective wellbeing of children under the age of eight living with chronic health conditions. Drawing on child-centred and trauma-informed approaches, this work seeks to better understand how young children experience and define wellbeing within the context of long-term health challenges. Her PhD aims to address a significant gap in current knowledge by ensuring that children's own voices and perspectives are central to research, rather than relying solely on adult interpretations of their experiences.
As part of this programme of research, she has conducted an international study exploring the mental health and wellbeing of parents caring for a child with a chronic health condition, recognising the interconnected relationship between parental wellbeing, family functioning, and child outcomes. She has also completed a scoping review of psychometric measures used to capture the subjective wellbeing of children living with chronic health conditions, highlighting the limitations of existing approaches and informing the development of more meaningful ways to understand children's lived experiences. Her current research involves working directly with children under the age of eight to explore and capture their experiences of living with chronic health conditions and the factors that contribute to their wellbeing.
Alongside her PhD, Beccie's research interests extend to trauma-informed practice, adverse childhood experiences, care experience, and mental health across the lifespan. As a care-experienced academic, she has a particular interest in understanding the impact of trauma and educational disadvantage on care-experienced learners. This includes her published work challenging deficit-based perspectives of care-experienced students and advocating for strengths-based approaches that recognise resilience, capability, and potential.
Across all aspects of her research, Beccie seeks to generate evidence that informs trauma-informed practice and supports the development of environments in which children, young people, families, and learners can thrive. Her work consistently explores the relationship between wellbeing, mental health, adversity, and resilience, with the goal of influencing professional practice and policy through meaningful engagement with lived experience.
Latest paper: Drachmann D, Hoffmann E, Carrigg A, Davis-Yates B et al. Towards enhanced understanding of idiopathic ketotic hypoglycemia: a literature review and introduction of the patient organization, Ketotic Hypoglycemia International. Orphanet J Rare Dis. 2021;16(1):1-11
https://ojrd.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13023-021-01797-2
Care experienced students are assets, not risks | Wonkhe
Early Years Educator: Early Years Children - Seen and not heard?:
https://www.magonlinelibrary.com/doi/abs/10.12968/eyed.2022.23.17.6
External activity
Publications
DRACHMANN, D, HOFFMANN, E, CARRIGG A, DAVIS-YATES, B, WEAVER V, PETERSEN, J.S, THORNTON, P, WEINSTEIN, D.A, SHAH, P & CHRISTESEN. H. 2021. Patient Organization for Families Affected by Idiopathic Ketotic Hypoglycemia. Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases (16):173
Care experienced students are assets, not risks | Wonkhe
https://www.magonlinelibrary.com/doi/abs/10.12968/eyed.2022.23.17.6
UN Sustainable Development Goals
Beccie's work aligns with the following UN Sustainability Development Goals
