Research news

‘Enriched realities’ and ‘Using chatbots in learning’ are two of the top ten new approaches to learning and teaching, according to this year’s Innovating Pedagogy 2021 report, co-authored by colleagues in The Open University’s Institute of Educational Technology (IET).

A homeschooling project, lead by WELS academics and geared towards inspiring hope and celebrating Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) diversity, has been awarded funding from the OU’s COVID-19 Rapid Response fund.

Dr Verina Waights, in collaboration with Willen Hospice, has received funding to enhance the use of technologies in a hospice; piloting and evaluating the use of digital technologies to enhance communications for service users and their families during the pandemic.

Joe Hanley, Social Work Lecturer, is leading a project to support social workers during the pandemic, piloting free online CPD to rapidly upskill social workers.

Dr Mathijs Lucassen, in conjunction with Professor Louise Wallace and Dr Raj Samra, has been awarded a grant from the Public Health Intervention Development (PHIND) Scheme to co-design an online rainbow wellbeing toolkit to promote wellbeing and resilience in LGBTQ+ adolescents.

​A research project, led by Professor Kwame Akyeampong, which takes a play-based approach to learning to improve education in early years education in Africa, has received $500,000 CAD in funding.

Two reports on the effect of COVID-19 on people with learning disabilities launched on 10 December. Carried out by the Social History of Learning Disability (SHLD) research group with the Faculty of WELS) the research focuses on lessons learned during COVID-19 that can help shape how support for people with learning disabilities can be better organised and better funded.

Dr Mathijs Lucassen is supporting updates to an existing digital therapy program in order to better support the mental health of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/trans, intersex and questioning (LGBTIQ+) youth.

A team from the School of Languages and Applied Linguistics (LAL) in WELS is undertaking new research into how language can shed light on how ideas of “right” and “wrong” emerged in language, in relation to government guidance on social distancing and face-coverings.

A report on ‘learning disability and belonging’ has been published, following exchange trips between UK and Japanese research teams.