Dr Victoria Bourne, of Royal Holloway’s Department of Psychology has been selected as a National Teaching Fellow, announced by the Higher Education Academy today. A National Teaching Fellowship is the most prestigious individual award for excellence in teaching in higher education.
Dr Victoria Bourne, of Royal Holloway’s Department of Psychology has been selected as one of 55 new National Teaching Fellows
National Teaching Fellows are nominated by their institutions and submissions had to show evidence of individual excellence, raising the profile of excellence and developing excellence.
Victoria is a psychologist and a Teaching Focused academic who is passionate about teaching research methods and statistics to students in a way that engages them in being active and independent researchers.
In praise of statistics
Her work focuses on developing innovative teaching strategies to make research methods and statistical analysis an approachable, accessible and exciting topic for students to learn about. By teaching and engaging students actively in the entire research process, students understand the need for learning about (often disliked) statistical analysis.
Professor Kathy Rastle, Head of Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway celebrated this accomplishment saying, “Victoria has transformed our research methods and statistics teaching. Our students are now far more engaged in the research process.”
Melissa Stock and Marine Pruvot, current undergraduate students also praised her approach, “Statistics can be hard, but through her expressive and open teaching, Victoria encourages us to become active researchers.”
Plans for the future
Victoria is keen to continue to make statistics more accessible to students, and is currently working on a range of interventions to alleviate statistics anxiety that can be individualised according to a student's own profile of strengths and weaknesses.
The Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway is consistently ranked within the best performing psychology departments in the UK, achieving 90% student satisfaction in this year’s NSS (National Student Survey).
Learn about opportunities to learn in the Department of Psychology as an undergraduate or postgraduate.
