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We welcome applications to undertake research towards MPhil and PhD degrees in Psychology.

Research at Worcester has grown significantly in the last 10 years as the University itself has expanded. As a research student you will join a vibrant student community in our Research School and become part of our dynamic research environment.

Overview

Overview

School of Psychology

The School of Psychology has a strong mix of academics with a high degree of professional and personal experience, enabling you to get the most out of your programme. Our staff have expertise in occupational psychology (values-based recruitment, coaching, resilience), mental health (adult and adolescent mental health, trauma, mood disorders, anxiety), social and cognitive psychology (cognitive reasoning, emotional intelligence, evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour), counselling approaches (CBT, EMDR therapy, suicide prevention), and developmental (family diversity, individual differences) and forensic psychology (intimate partner violence, bystander interventions). Staff can offer a wide range of expertise in relation to research methods and the full range of research interests can be seen with the supervisor details.

Register your interest

Enter your details below and we will keep you up to date with useful information about studying at the University of Worcester.


Entry requirements

Entry requirements

Entry qualifications

For MPhil

  • First or Upper Second Class Honours Degree or an approved equivalent award

or

  • Research or professional experience which has resulted in appropriate evidence of achievement.

For PhD

  • Postgraduate Masters Degree in a discipline which is appropriate to the proposed programme of study

or

  • First or Upper Second Class Honours Degree or equivalent award in an appropriate discipline

or

  • Research or professional experience at postgraduate level which has resulted in published work, written reports or other appropriate evidence of achievement.

International applicants

International applicants will be required to demonstrate that they have the appropriate level of written and spoken English.

For MPhil/PhD this is an IELTS score of 6.5 with a minimum score of 6.0 in every component.

Programme structure

Programme structure

PhD year by year

After receiving your application, we try to establish if we have the necessary expertise to supervise your project and we begin to form a supervisory team for you. This will normally consist of a Director of Studies (DoS), who will be your lead supervisor, and at least one other supervisor, who will offer you additional support and guidance throughout your studies. If, following a successful interview, you are offered a place as a full-time student, your programme of study will look something like this:

First year

You will have submitted a draft research outline with your application. In your first year, you will be working towards submitting a more complete research proposal. You will be aided in your research by meeting with your supervisory team to discuss your progress. You will also be supported through your first year by engaging with a series of three modules as part of our Researcher Development Programme:

  • RSDP4001: Developing as a Researcher
  • RSDP4005: Approaches to Research
  • RSDP4004: Planning Your Research Project

At the end of each year, beginning with your first year, you will reflect on and formally review your progress with your supervisory team and MPhil/PhD Course Leader. We call this annual meeting an Annual Progress Review (APR).

Second year

In your second year, you will be collecting data and working on your research project under the supervision of your supervisors through regular meetings. You may at this point have research papers ready to publish and you may wish to attend conferences to present your research to other experts in your field. You will be able to apply to our Research Student Support Scheme for some funding for this purpose. Students normally undergo Transfer from MPhil to PhD towards the end of their second year. This will be part of your Annual Progress Review for this year.

Third and fourth years

In your third and fourth year, you will be writing up your thesis and preparing for your viva voce examination. This is an oral exam with two examiners and a chair. You can also request that your supervisor be present at the exam. The exam will take place after you have submitted your final thesis. After the exam, it is not unusual for the examiners to ask that some amendments be made to your thesis before the final award is confirmed and you will have additional time to do this. It is possible to complete the course in three years, but we have found that the majority of students do take four years to complete the course. At the end of each year of your registration, you will go through an Annual Progress Review.

Resources

Access to the University of Worcester’s virtual resources and its state-of-the-art library facilities. The Psychology team at Worcester have an excellent range of resources available to support your learning and your research project, including: Mobile eye-tracker & associated laptop, 2 x static computer-mounted eye-trackers (eye-tribe eye-trackers), Psychometric test library, 3 x video recorders, 2 x digital voice recorders, 11 x Fitbits, 1 x mobile EEG, 1 x E-prime software, 7 x iPads, and 20 x callipers.

Programme specification

For comprehensive details on the aims and intended learning outcomes of the course, and the means by which these are achieved through learning, teaching and assessment, please download the latest programme specification document for the MPhil or PhD.

Part time students follow the same structure as full-time students but normally complete the PhD over a period of five to six years. Part-time students take two modules in each of their first two years, and will normally Transfer to PhD in their fourth year.

Research areas

Research areas

Benefit from a professional and challenging relationship with your supervisory team, drawn from experienced academics working at the forefront of their disciplines.

Supervision areas

The School of Psychology has a strong mix of academics with a high degree of professional and personal experience, enabling you to get the most out of your programme. Our staff have expertise in occupational psychology (values-based recruitment, coaching, resilience), mental health (adult and adolescent mental health, trauma, mood disorders, anxiety), social and cognitive psychology (cognitive reasoning, emotional intelligence, evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour), counselling approaches (CBT, EMDR therapy, suicide prevention), and developmental (family diversity, individual differences) and forensic psychology (intimate partner violence, international perspectives on offending). Staff can offer a wide range of expertise in relation to research methods and the full range of research interests can be seen with the supervisor details.

Some of the current projects of Psychology students include emotional intelligence in adolescence, the embodiment of the Female sporting body, psychological factors in police officers’ decision-making and cultural constructions of sexuality.

Some of the current projects of Psychology students include sociocultural contexts and families, sexuality and health, traumatic stress in teachers, and psychological factors in police officers’ decision-making.

Supervisors

Please click on the name of the supervisor to follow a link to their webpage and find out more about their research interests and potential areas of PhD supervision. We recommend contacting a potential supervisor with your research outline before submitting a formal application, please read our guidelines for writing your research outline first.  Please only contact one supervisor. If another supervisor is better suited to your project, we will redirect your query.

Some supervisors have put forward ideas for potential PhD projects that they would be interested to supervise. These are listed below the name of the relevant supervisor. We also welcome original research proposals.

 

Professor Eleanor Bradley 
Research specialisms: adult mental health; medicines conversations (information-exchange, concordance); family input and support (shared decision making, coproduction); non-medical prescribing; qualitative research. The application of health psychology theory to mental healthcare. Current projects include the input of families to shared decision making within adult mental healthcare, an exploration of the role of motivational interviewing as a resource for prescribing professionals to enhance communication within adult mental healthcare, and defining recovery within and between adult mental healthcare services. 
Research methodologies: predominantly qualitative, with a particular interest in constructivist grounded theory.

Dr Sarah Davis
Research specialisms: Individual differences; emotional intelligence; child and adolescent development; personality; mental health; stress and coping; resilience; social cognition; attentional bias 
Research methodologies: Longitudinal; experimental and cross-sectional research designs; psychometric validation; quantitative statistical methods including structural equation modelling and conditional process modelling (Mediation and moderation).

Self-funded project: Emotional intelligence in bipolar disorder

Dr Derek Farrell 
Research specialisms: psychological trauma; Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE’s); child sexual abuse; clergy sexual abuse; gender-based violence; trauma capacity building; psychological first aid; EMDR Therapy; cognitive behavioural psychotherapies, mental health & severe mental illness; performance enhancement in sport; psychological interventions within humanitarian assistance programmes; clinical supervision; positive psychology.
Research methodologies: interpretative phenomenological analysis; Q Methodology; Delphi Technique; mixed methodology; psychometric evaluation and validation including statistical analysis.

Dr Daniel Farrelly
Research specialisms: evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour, in particular social and cognitive psychology. 
Research methodologies: quantitative, experimental.

Dr Kath Gordon-Smith
Research specialisms: comorbidities (physical and psychiatric) of major mood disorders 
Research methodologies: quantitative, longitudinal mood measures in bipolar disorder.

Self-funded project: Emotional intelligence in bipolar disorder
Self-funded project: Atopic diseases in bipolar disorder

Dr Gillian Harrop
Research specialisms: violence and sexual violence; false allegations; domestic abuse; police investigation.

Self-funded project: Bystander Intervention

Matthew Jellis
Research specialisms: occupational/business psychology; personnel selection, assessment and training; organisational change and development. 
Research methodologies: quantitative studies in applied settings, including the analysis of archive data; qualitative; mixed and multi-methods

Self-funded project:Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviour and Health & Wellbeing

Professor Lisa Jones
Research specialisms: aetiology of major mood disorders (including bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis). 
Research methodologies: quantitative, longitudinal measures in major mood disorders.

Self-funded project: Emotional intelligence in bipolar disorder
Self-funded project: Atopic diseases in bipolar disorder

Dr Béré Mahoney
Research specialisms: victimisation; the social and psychological costs of crime; sexuality and gender identity; eating behaviour; ageing and appearance concerns and beliefs about aging; individual differences. 
Research methodologies: quantitative, including the analysis of ‘Big Data’; qualitative; mixed and multi-methods

Self-funded project: ‘Positive Higher Education’: The Role of Universities in Developing Character Strengths and Wellbeing
Self-funded project: Supporting the psychological needs of parents of newborn infants diagnosed with complex congenital heart disease, using a storytelling based intervention.

Dr Gabriela Misca
Research specialisms: developmental psychology and family diversity across the life-span; military and veterans psychology; military and veteran families: parenting, couple relationships, military trauma, mental health and PTSD; child and adolescent development and mental health in the context of diverse families and child-care settings: adoption, foster care, intercountry adoption, global surrogacy, same-sex parenting. Adverse early experiences, parenting, attachment and the intergenerational transmission of risk. 
Research methodologies: quantitative (including longitudinal approaches to cohort data), qualitative (including narrative approaches) and mixed methods; participatory research methods with children and adults; systematic review approaches, and intervention evaluation.

Dr Blaire Morgan
Research specialisms: psycholinguistics, education, positive psychology, social psychology, moral education and virtue ethics. 
Research methodologies: quantitative, mixed methods.

Self-funded project: ‘Positive Higher Education’: The Role of Universities in Developing Character Strengths and Wellbeing

Dr Helen Scott
Research specialisms: occupational psychology; empathy and emotional intelligence; resilience; training and development interventions to support employee psychological wellbeing.
Research methodologies: quantitative, mixed methods.

Self-funded project: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education

 

Careers

Careers

All students engage with our Researcher Development Programme (RDP). The RDP aims to develop and enhance the skills, both generic and specific, that you will need to complete your research degree but also to become an effective researcher. The RDP is organised around thematic clusters, consisting of modules, and workshops, delivered face-to-face by subject specialists from across the University and the dedicated Researcher Development Team, or online through our virtual learning environment.

As part of the RDP, you will complete a Postgraduate Certificate in Research Methods (PG Cert). All students must complete the PG Cert in order to progress on their MPhil/PhD Programme. The PG Cert is strongly focused on developing your programme of research, starting from establishing your development needs, and preparing you for the planning and subsequent delivery of your programme of research.

Full-time students will complete the PG Cert in 12 months and part-time students in 24 months.

Fees

Fees and funding

Fees

The current fees can be found within the tuition fees document on our figure out finances page.

Accommodation

Finding the right accommodation is paramount to your university experience. Our halls of residence are home to friendly student communities, making them great places to live and study.

We have over 1,000 rooms across our range of student halls. With rooms to suit every budget and need, from our 'Traditional Halls' at £131 per week to 'Ensuite Premium Halls' at £228 per week (2025/26 prices).

For full details visit our accommodation page.
How to apply

How to apply

Additional information

As part of the application process, you will be asked to submit a research outline. We recommend preparing your research outline before beginning your online application. Some guidance on preparing your research outline is available here.

If your research involves working with vulnerable adults and/or children then you may be required to obtain an enhanced DBS check. There will be a small charge for this. For more information please contact research@worc.ac.uk.

We are committed to making reasonable adjustment. If you require an alternative format for making your application due to a disability, please contact us to discuss your needs on 01905 542182 or research@worc.ac.uk.

Information about application and interview deadlines

How to apply

Please make your application via our online application form. If you have any questions, please contact the Doctoral School on 01905 542182 or research@worc.ac.uk

Before you submit a full application, please contact Dr Berenice Mahoney (b.mahoney@worc.ac.uk) to discuss your research project and the availability of appropriate supervision.

Application links

MPhil

MPhil - September - Full time MPhil - September - Part time MPhil - January - Full time MPhil - January - Part time

PhD

PhD - September - Full time PhD - September - Part time PhD - January - Full time PhD - January - Part time

Get in touch

Dr Berenice Mahoney

b.mahoney@worc.ac.uk

Research School

research@worc.ac.uk
01905 542182

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