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Background: The flipped classroom method requires that students engage with homework before coming to the classroom so that class time can be spent on active and collaborative learning exercises. Research has demonstrated that this can improve student performance versus traditional lecturer-led teaching methods. Objective: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the vast majority of teaching has been entirely online such that even 'in-class' time has been virtual. The current article examined whether online-only delivery affects the efficacy of the flipped classroom approach. Method: Grades for a research methods and statistics module and a statistics portfolio assignment were compared across consecutive cohorts of undergraduate psychology students taught by different methods. Results: Overall grades on the module did not differ significantly across teaching methods but student performance on statistics tests did. Flipped classrooms, whether accompanied by on-campus or synchronous online classes, led to significantly better performance than traditional methods. No detriment was observed by teaching entirely online. Conclusion: The key advantages of the flipped classroom method appear driven by active learning which can occur irrespective of classroom context. Teaching Implications: Using flipped classrooms can be a useful tool, particularly in subjects where students may otherwise be less engaged with the content.

This paper reports a series of studies that assessed the performance of students on continuous assessment components from two courses in an undergraduate psychology programme. Data were collected from two consecutive cohorts of students (total N = 576) and the grades of students were compared based on additional learning needs (ALN; ALN versus No ALN), whether or not the students had requested an extension to a deadline, and whether or not students had missed any of the tests that made up the continuous assessment component. Results showed no significant differences in attainment between students with and without ALN, supporting the argument that continuous assessment does not differentially impact students who already require additional support. Students who were granted deadline extensions achieved significantly lower scores, but only on the course with content that built week on week. Students who missed one or more tests achieved significantly lower scores even if the grade was calculated ignoring the questions that a student had not attempted. The implications of these findings for assessment practice in higher education are discussed.

AbstractAlthough teachers spend a lot of time striving to provide high-quality feedback, students do not always act upon it and may rate it as unhelpful. The current study attempted to determine the characteristics of feedback that influence students’ intentions to use teachers’ comments in their future work. Participants rated real feedback comments for clarity, tone and encouragement as well as their intention to use those comments if they had received them on their own work in three studies. Multiple regression analyses demonstrated that intention to use ratings were higher for comments which were ‘nice’ (supportive, encouraging, motivating, positive in tone) and ‘usable’ (clear, constructive, helpful). We argue that these data provide clear guidance for instructors as to how to approach the provision of written feedback on student work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that, across different psychological contexts, the methods of data collection, treatment, and analysis in word association tests have hitherto been inconsistent. We demonstrate that this inconsistency has resulted from inadequate control, in previous studies, of certain important variables including the basis of norm comparisons, and we present a principled method for collecting, scoring, and analysing association responses, to address these issues. The method is evaluated using test and retest data sets from 16-year-old and over-65-year-old twins (n = 636), which enable us to (a) compare samples matched for key environmental variables, (b) assess the transferability of norming information between age cohorts, and (c) evaluate the reliability of the scoring protocols. We find systematic differences in the association behaviour of the two age cohorts, indicating the importance of evaluating data only against norms lists that are matched to the target population. Individual association behaviour is found to be consistent across test times, both in terms of response stereotypy and response type.

COVID-19 presented a major societal challenge including threat to life, bereavement, selfisolation, loss of income and significant psychological distress. Yet, it is possible that such suffering may also lead to post-traumatic growth (PTG) and subsequent wellbeing. The current study aimed to investigate the contributors to PTG and whether PTG mediated their relationship with wellbeing, measured using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale. In a cross-sectional sample of 136 participants (mean age = 30.52; SD = 13.80), a hierarchical regression and mediation analysis was conducted, focusing on physical activity, gratitude, tragic optimism, social support, and nature connection, guided by our recently published 'GENIAL' framework (Mead, Fisher, & Kemp, 2021). The regression analysis highlighted that our variables predicted up to 18% of the variance in PTG, whilst controlling for age, gender and subjective social status, with gratitude and nature connection being key predictors - indicating the importance of these factors over and above previously reported contributors to PTG, such as social support. Our findings provide new evidence on the drivers of PTG and raise important questions concerning the relationship between the related constructs of PTG and wellbeing. Limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Word association has been a popular tool for research in linguistics and psychology over the last century. The paradigm presents participants with a cue word and asks them to respond with the first associated word that comes to mind. Inferences about the structure and organization of the lexicon have been made on the basis of the findings of word association tasks, and on the assumption that responses reflect the strongest link between words in the participants' vocabulary. The procedure adopted in traditional word association tasks does not guarantee that this is the case. This article presents two experiments that aimed to determine whether or not participants make deliberate and strategic responses in word association tasks. Findings indicate that word association responses are likely to reflect the first word that participants activate in their lexicon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]