Lecturer in Psychology, Advanced Research Methods and Director of Teaching and Learning (DTL) in Psychology
This project addressed the need to improve diversity in Psychology through embedding in the academic skills curriculum.
While there is diversity in the history of Psychology, the diversity in the field is often not clearly presented to students in their learning. This lack of visible diversity can have an enormous negative impact on students who might not feel like they ‘fit’ in Psychology, as they do not see themselves represented. This plays a big role in whether students might feel a sense of belonging to a community, and whether they might go into a Psychology career in the future.
In order to ensure all students feel represented in Psychology, this case study embedded diversity of the field throughout their first-year academic skills module. Students are challenged to explore diversity within Psychology through means of two guided assignments.
A student stated “[i]t has been interesting, it helped us learn a lot about how equality and diversity developed within psychology.”— A student
We aimed to increase sense of belonging and enhance engagement by embedding diversity in the skills development curriculum, rather than adding it as a separate topic. This reflects that diversity is as crucial to students’ degree as learning to write essays: diversity becomes an asset, rather than an afterthought.
Diversity in Psychology was introduced in the first year Essential Skills training. Students were challenged to explore diversity in an essay and a presentation. For the essay, students had the choice of topics relating to equality and diversity, and were asked to think critically about the role Psychology played. These were challenging questions: e.g., students could write about the role Psychology has played in structural racism, or how the pathologisation of disability and LGBTQ+ identities has resulted in marginalising communities. For the presentation, students were tasked to find and present someone they consider a diverse role model in Psychology. Crucially, they chose the person themselves, to enable them to choose someone who reflects their identity.
In terms of impact, the essay challenges students to think critically about the field, directly allowing them to consider issues that affect minoritisation. Students reported learning a lot from the assignment as well as liking the option to choose the question they found most interesting. Staff reported they thought the assignment had “set great questions that [would] stimulate interesting answers,” and this was reflected in the students’ feedback. A student stated “[i]t has been interesting, it helped us learn a lot about how equality and diversity developed within psychology.” Another student even reported that the assignment impacted them beyond the module: “it was very interesting and it has definitely broadened my mind, not just psychologically but generally too. It has also lead to wider thinking and more discussions.”
The presentation enhanced engagement and made students more aware of diversity within the field. Students reported the presentations were “eye-opening”, and multiple students mentioned learning beyond just their role-model: “it was great getting to choose our own figure as we got to find out information about other psychologists in the process and also picked the figure we found most intriguing” and “I enjoyed being able to pick our own person to present on because it allowed us to do some research into a lot of amazing people who have contributed to the field of psychology throughout the years.” The presentations had an additional positive side-effect as staff reported learning about diversity themselves too: “This is an amazing assignment! I had no idea about these people, so I am learning for sure.”
Overall, embedding diversity into the curriculum positively impacted student engagement and belonging, and increased awareness of diversity in Psychology among staff and students. As a recommendation for anyone considering implementing something similar, I would suggest allowing the students an element of agency, so that they can see THEIR identity represented. Our students are multi-faceted in many ways, and reflecting their identities is the only way to be truly inclusive in our education.