IC Psychology Students Engage in Community Research
Engaging young people beyond the classroom to participate in community research not only helps them to develop valuable academic skills, but it allows them to co-produce knowledge about issues challenging their world as future academics, clinicians and practitioners.
Abnormal Psychology student, Conor (USA) and Developmental Psychology student, Josie (USA) had the unique opportunity to engage in community research with St. Clare’s Psychology Tutor and University of Oxford Doctoral Research Fellow, Ellen Froustis. They co-designed and facilitated a series of focus groups with young people in Nottingham last November. On behalf of the Public Protection Division of the Broxtowe Borough Council in Nottingham, the research team collected data from 11-19 years olds at Youth Centres across the Borough to better understand the impact of social media on the mental health of young people and how they experienced voice, connectedness and belonging to their school and community.
Josie and Connor constructed talking sticks named “Alice” and “Andrew” to guide discussions and captured rich dialogue from British youth from both represented and under-represented communities.
Ellen said, “They were brilliant! They had such positive rapport with youth, that I often stepped back for them to lead the dialogue as mentors and role models to younger peers who were curious about the university students visiting from America.”
Josie and Connor transcribed, coded, and analysed the qualitative data and co-authored a report of findings with their Psychology Tutor for the Broxtowe Borough Council. The findings were later used to host the first Youth Conference to open dialogue with a broader cohort of Nottingham youth to enable equity and inclusion of youth voices about issues impacting their communities.
