Lecturer in Psychology
Environmental Psychology is a new module being introduced which explores topics in applied psychology to make sustainable behavioural changes when interacting with urban and natural environments. Students use their knowledge from the module topics and apply that into group projects where they work with external partners to implement and report behavioural intervention to facilitate sustainable choices.
Through the Environmental Sustainability module, students will carry out group projects to implement behavioural interventions to facilitate sustainable choices among the public. Students are tasked with finding a suitable external partner for which they would design an environmental intervention at their premises. Students will pitch their idea to the partner and prepare intervention items. There will be a total of 33 hours spent on this project, including meetings, installation, research, and debrief. While there will remain a taught component of the module delivered by lectures and seminars, the second half of each seminar will provide students with support carrying out the group projects. This will allow students to gain feedback from peers and the academic team. These projects are carried out with 8-10 students within each group, and tutors will be in close contact with those groups during their research.
Environmental psychology stands out as the only module within the Psychology programme offering students a more practical approach to address real-world challenges. The module supports students to develop a range of graduate attributes, including judgement, identifying opportunities for change with the given resources, designing a high-quality behaviour intervention, and pitching intervention ideas to non-psychologists. This student-led project offers students the opportunities to enhance their employability through attributes and real world experience.
The module also provides support for accessibility and inclusivity through the group project, where students get to choose and work with their peers to focus on specific roles which suit their strengths. Mini lectures are also recorded and uploaded for students to view before any seminar activity. All module readings are available through SensusAccess, making all the material easily accessible and giving neurodiverse students and students with disabilities plenty of time to prepare.
Dr Valdas Noreika is a Lecturer in Psychology at the School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences. Having obtained BA in Philosophy and MSc in Neurobiology, he carried out a PhD project on altered states of consciousness at the University of Turku, Finland. Before joining Queen Mary University of London, Dr Noreika worked at the University of Oxford, Cambridge and Queensland (Australia). His research focuses on sleep, time processing, and beliefs, including environmental beliefs and attitudes towards biodiversity. Dr Noreika developed Environmental Psychology aiming to equip psychology students with professional tools to address climate change and other environmental challenges.