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Prestigious Higher Education Academy grant for Kent psychologist

Dr Georgina Randsley de Moura from the University of Kent has been named as one of 15 recipients of a Higher Education Academy (HEA) Doctoral Programme grant.

This £55,000 award forms part of the HEA's strategy to undertake research to develop pedagogical knowledge and evidence-based practice in higher education. The 15 awards were made to academics nationally, across all disciplines.

Dr Randsley de Moura, a senior lecturer in social psychology at the University's School of Psychology, will lead the supervision of the three-year doctoral programme grant, with the School's Professor Dominic Abrams acting as second supervisor. The research will build on her previous work on organisational identity to uncover the benefits of excellent learning and teaching (LT) in HEIs, and determine how and why HEIs can improve LT through reward and recognition systems. The project will focus on how these systems across HEIs affect performance via their impact on key psychological variables that are known to impact workplace attitudes and behaviour, such as organisational identity and job satisfaction.

The research outcomes will inform a practical tool-kit for HEIs. The findings will be widely disseminated to increase the understanding of how strategic recognition and reward of learning and teaching can impact psychological variables that in turn will improve LT performance. These research insights for practice directly feed into the national agenda for employee engagement as a means to improve organisational productivity and efficiency. They will also contribute to Kent's commitment to continue improvements in student experience.

Dr Randsley de Moura's research activities are focused on the major orientations and discoveries in the social psychology of group processes, and how such discoveries impact upon the diverse worlds of social policy, business, politics and marketing. She collaborates regularly with colleagues from the School's Centre for the Study of Group Processes, and has published in leading journals such as Journal of Personality and Social Psychology with Professor Abrams, the Centre's Director.

She was previously funded by the HEA for a project that led to the creation of a web-based tool to enhance students' work placement experience.

Her current award, which will help further raise the University of Kent's profile as an international centre for postgraduate studies, has been welcomed by its Dean of Graduate Studies, Professor Diane Houston. She said: 'This latest award develops the University of Kent's strengths and recent successes in postgraduate studies. In preparation for the University's 50th anniversary in 2015, Kent has established an additional 100 doctoral scholarships to be awarded annually from 2012.'

Contact: pressoffice@kent.ac.uk

Story published at 9:49am 28 May 2012