David Clarke's information for students
(Last updated 19/3/2021)
This site is mainly for...
* students who have taken modules and projects with me in the past;
* my former tutees and advisees;
* current students who are interested in materials and ideas from my projects and modules.
STOP PRESS NEWS
I have now retired, but I shall still be in the university quite often. I can always be contacted by email with any queries or to set up a meeting.
Some of the links below may return a "This page isn't working" message. In general they will be ones which start www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk. This is because some of my files on university servers have expired since I retired. In the main, the information is still available, if you contact me by email for any item you need in particular. In many cases, out of date links have been replaced by new ones starting https://sites.google.com/site/nottinghamddc, and these should still be fine. (If not, please let me know, so that I can fix them.)
GENERAL INFORMATION
If you want to know more about my research and teaching, you can click on the following links for lists of papers, research grants, third-year projects and completed PhDs. A brief summary of my work and interests is here with a diagram of how it all fits together.
CONTACTING ME
General contact information is here. This will be kept up-to-date with any changes that occur.
You can e-mail me with queries: David.Clarke@nottingham.ac.uk. If there is something we need to discuss, or if you want to arrange a meeting, please include a phone number (eg mobile) where I can reach you. Please use your official University account to send e-mails, otherwise they may get blocked by my 'spam' filters.
The following people always know how to reach me with urgent messages, if I am not around the University:
Sophie Richardson
Staff in the School Office
The directory of phone numbers and e-mail addresses is here.
And otherwise, keep a look out for this face!
ODDS and ENDS...
Plagiarism warning
The School of Psychology, like other parts of the University, now has special software to aid in the detection of plagiarism in students' coursework. Plagiarism is not permitted, and the penalties can be severe. This can be a particular problem for students who use a 'paste and modify' strategy for their coursework, in which they paste sentences or paragraphs from the Web into a draft of their work, meaning to re-write them later in their own style. I would advise students NOT to work in this way, because
(1) they may be accused of plagiarism if the material is not altered enough;
(2) they will not acquire a real understanding of the subject as they would if they assimilated the meaning of the material and re-described it for themselves; and
(3) they will still (arguably) be cheating in a way, even if they fool the plagiarism software, as their only original contribution will be to disguise someone else's writing enough to pass it off as their own.
Deadlines
There are important deadlines for coursework through the year, and lateness penalties if you miss them. Details are here.
Citation searching
For final year students in particular, one of the most useful 'tricks of the trade' you can know is how to do a citation search. This is how you find out which subsequent articles have cited a particular work you already know about. This is like building your 'search tree' of references forwards in time instead of backwards. This enables you to bring your knowledge of a topic up to date, given one or more old - but relevant - reference(s). Details of how to do it, and a worked example, are here.
Weekly research seminars
These are held on Wednesday afternoons in term-time in the School of Psychology and are STRONGLY recommended, especially for final year students. The programme is here.
What does it take to do well?
One kind of answer to that question can be found here. (This is particularly for students doing my 'Understanding Patterns of Action' module, but others may find it useful as well.)
Food for thought
Some of my ideas about psychology in the form of short sayings or 'aphorisms'.
Some early feedback on my research
A letter I had as a research student is here!
The 'Quality Manual' of the University
"The Quality Manual is relevant to both staff and students. It was established in 1995 and aims to act as a central source of information for policies and procedures which support the University in its aim to assure the quality of its learning, teaching and supervision. Students may expect advice from tutors on the use and interpretation of the Quality Manual if they need it. "
Reference lists for essays, practicals, and projects.
The appropriate 'APA' format is summarized here.
Exam technique
Some good advice is here and here (although, in the interests of avoiding plagiarism, I should point out it was not written by me, and the original author is unknown).
Miscellaneous sources
Feedback
Comments from some previous students can be found here.
ASSESSMENTS: EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES AND RESITS
If you have any worries about these matters, please contact me.
If you have 'extenuating circumstances' such as illness affecting an assessment, you need a form which you can get from the School Office. That is then filled in by you and your tutor or module convenor. It looks complicated but in essence it just asks (1) What has happened? (2) What has it affected? (3) What can we do to make allowance for that? The form is also here:
The regulations which specify if a resit is necessary are rather complicated, but are summarised in a flow diagram which is here:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/academicservices/documents/qmdocuments/ug-regs-flow-chart.pdf
FINAL-YEAR PROJECTS
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...'" (Isaac Asimov)
Please note: I shall not be supervising final-year projects after the 2014-15 academic year. The following information is just for use by former students and for general interest.
Resources
There is a folder of resources you may need while doing your project here. (Within this 'Project resources' folder there are some sub-folders which you can ignore, as they are just components of the documents next to them in the list. They get used automatically when their associated document is opened.)
Examples
If you want to see some good examples from previous years, sequence analysis projects are here, 'vignette' projects are here, and 'super-reversal' projects are here. If you are doing a sequence project, your first objective - believe it or not - will be to produce a dataset that looks something like this. After that the magic begins, and that will amaze you!
See here for a brief introduction to sequence analysis (as slides from a talk), and here for some of the key steps in doing an analysis. My own background in sequence analysis, and my reasons for liking it so much, are here.
How to choose
My thoughts on the best way to choose a project are here.
Tactics
Thoughts on how to start and run a project are here.
The story continues
A group of us who all do Research in Behaviour Sequence Analysis have got together to form 'ReBSA'. We collaborate on various research projects and papers; exchange and develop research methods; and advise other researchers and groups on ways of using Behaviour Sequence Analysis in their work. Details of who we are and what we do are here.
'PATTERNS OF ACTION' - LECTURE MODULE
Please note: This module will not be available after the 2014-15 academic year. The following information is just for use by former students and for general interest.
There is a book which covers some of the same ground - downloadable from the Web - by clicking here. There is also a 'virtual book' containing some of my more speculative ideas, which is here.
General module information is in Moodle, the reading list is here, and the learning objectives are here.
There is also an online reading list in Moodle with links to information and online ordering for each item, plus a folder on the Web with assorted reading materials for the module, which will be updated periodically. This is well worth browsing through, although much of it will not make any sense until you have started the module. A lot of background information to the module can also be found by browsing my publication list, which is here, and there is a folder containing a selection of past exam papers.
The module evaluation report ('SEM') for 2011-12 is here.
The student evaluation of teaching ('SET') for 2013-14 is summarised here and here.
Schedule
Latest 'Patterns of Action' exam report
Please click here.
'PATTERNS OF ACTION' - DISSERTATION MODULE
Please note: This module will not be available after the 2014-15 academic year. The following information is just for use by former students and for general interest.
This module allowed students who had taken the 'Patterns of Action' lecture module to pick an area of particular interest, and read about it and discuss it in greater depth and detail, before writing a 4,000 word dissertation which was handed in early in the summer term. The topic was up to the student, provided it was broadly within the area covered by 'Patterns of Action'. It could be set within one of the eight core lecture topics, or could straddle more than one - although the emphasis was on depth, rather than breadth.
Examples of some particularly good dissertations from previous years are here. (If that link does not work please try here.)
At a recent final examination board, the external examiner said in his closing remarks "I was looking through the 'Patterns of Action Dissertations' - they were really great. A wide variety of topics, really well done."
Supervision arrangements
Notes from the initial briefing, and most of the stuff students needed to know and refer back to while doing the module, is here.
Ideas to start off the discussions are here.
Some of the information in the 'Understanding Patterns of Action - lecture module' section above was relevant, as well.
To help get started,students could refer to books like 'Advances in Experimental Social Psychology', an annual collection of review articles. They were advised to work their way back through the years until they found the most recent review of something like their chosen topic. Details of the latest volume are here. Likewise 'Advances in Psychology' - seehere.
REFERENCES IN FUTURE
In general I can always write references for students I have known well as tutees, or project students. It helps though if you let me know well in advance (a) that you are putting my name down as a referee, and roughly when the reference might be needed - in case I am away; (b) exactly what you are applying for; (c) whether the organisation will contact me for a reference, or I should send one proactively; and (d) - if some time has gone by - an update on what you have been doing, or a recent CV.
FURTHER COURSES & CAREERS
Advice on work experience, if you want to be a Clinical Psychologist.
Details are here.
Considering a PhD/MPhil in future?
I am about to retire, so I am not taking on any more PhD students. However I am happy to talk to anyone about the general process of applying for and doing a PhD.
General information about research degrees is the School of Psychology is here.
Have you visited the 'Post Graduate Virtual Open Day'?
Careers and Employability Service
Information is here.
Career Development Support for International Students
Information is here.
NOW I HAVE RETIRED . . .
I am still involved with the University, coming in fairly often, and happy to help former students. This page will continue to have information for my former tutees finishing their degree, and others. It will include contact information, advice on projects, and examples of the best dissertations and projects from earlier years. The latest contact information will still be here.