Three Institute of Education (IoE) staff have recently won the University of Reading Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme (UROP) funding. UROP offers undergraduate students the chance to gain hands-on research experience on projects. This can make a significant contribution to a student’s transferable skills, employability and understanding of the research environment. Details of these three projects can be found below.
Many congratulations, Billy, Holly and Daisy!
Dr. Billy Wong (Lecturer in Widening Participation)
Student Experiences in STEM degrees: A look into the life of undergraduates
A 3-year study funded by the University of Reading to explore student experiences and attainments in STEM disciplines, with a focus on understanding the difference in grades between students from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. This project will involve a basic literature review, analysis of statistics and interview data, as well as report writing.
More details of the project and the students’ role on this project can be found here.
Dr. Holly Joseph (Associate Professor of Language Education and Literacy Development)
Investigating online inference making during reading in children who speak English as an additional language
This project explores if and when children who speak English as an additional language (EAL) make inferences spontaneously as they are reading. The research project will use eye movement methodology to track reading behaviour as children read passages that require an inference to be made. This will allow us to see not only if they make an inference but when they make it, and if certain patterns of eye movements are associated with good reading comprehension.
More details of the project and the students’ role on this project can be found here.
Dr. Daisy Powell (Associate Professor in the Psychology of Written Language)
Learning to read in monolingual and bilingual children: does cognitive flexibility play a part?
This interdisciplinary (education, psychology) project will investigate word reading in monolingual and bilingual children in primary schools to investigate whether bilingualism impacts on a) word reading and b) children’s ability to learn to read novel words. We will also investigate whether group differences are moderated by differences in cognitive flexibility.
More details of the project and the students’ role on this project can be found here.