• Haberdashery for use in dress 1550-1800

      Hamilton, Polly (University of Wolverhampton, 2007-10)
      This study investigates the supply, distribution and use of haberdashery wares in England in the late sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with especial reference to the paired counties of Cumbria and Lancashire, Warwickshire and Leicestershire, Hampshire and West Sussex. A brief comparison is also made with London. Through examination of documentary evidence and extant examples, it aims to set the provision and use of haberdashery for dress into the context of the Early Modern period, and challenges widely held assumptions concerning the availability of wares through the country. The purpose of the argument is firstly to demonstrate that haberdashery, being both a necessity and a luxury, was an important, and historically traceable, part of traded goods in the early modern period, and secondly, with particular reference to the response of retailers to changing needs and demands, to show that the widescale availability of haberdashery for use in dress made it significant in the expression of personal identity and appearance for individuals of all social strata, while its manufacture and distribution provided employment for considerable numbers of people.
    • Having a bath in Japan: a biographical study of actress and black belt jūdōka Sarah Mayer (1896-1957)

      Williams, Jean; Callan-Spenn, Amanda (University of Wolverhampton, 2019-05)
      In 1933, British actor and playwright, Sarah Mayer, left behind her wealthy husband, and the large country estate they shared in rural Hampshire, for a trip to Japan. As a judo enthusiast travelling as a sports tourist, Sarah became the first western woman in Japan to receive the award of shōdan, or first degree black-belt, for judo, from the Butokukai, an increasingly militaristic, pedagogical institution, aimed at continuing the study of traditional and modern fighting techniques. Sarah’s training at the home of the art, the Kōdōkan in Tokyo, was encouraged by founder, Jigorō Kanō, a known internationalist in outlook. As the trip continued, the Japanese government promoted Mayer’s tour as part of the drive for modernism. Primarily, this thesis analyses the reasons for her unprecedented acceptance as a Western woman by Kanō and the wider judo establishment. Using a biographical framework, and drawing on a large volume of primary source research, this work places Sarah’s achievement into a context of not only time and place, but social mobility and agency, considering, firstly, Sarah’s life before she went to Japan. Central to the thesis, the work then continues with an in-depth study of her time in Japan and the height of her international fame as a sporting personality, concluding with her final years and reflecting on her precarious place within history. Whilst contributing to the literature on gendered sporting performance and role models of the early twentieth century, this work should be seen as a revision of the limited historiography of women in judo, and also, to a lesser extent, the international politicisation of physical culture. The politicisation of sport, particularly the fighting arts, is an important, and sometimes neglected area of sports history, particularly in the Western literature. Providing a gendered perspective on the international history of the growth and diversification of martial arts, this thesis investigates a crucial case study, encompassing overarching themes of class, individual agency and the wider political context of Anglo-Japanese relations.
    • Healthcare practitioners’ and patients’ perspectives of a weight management service and the place of psychological support within this

      LEHL, S (2016-07)
      Both the NHS and Public Health are keen to identify how best to manage long term health condition’s as a result from obesity and vice-versa. There is evidence to support the efficacy of psychological support in weight management programmes. This study explored the perceived importance of psychological support within weight management services; perspectives of both client and healthcare practitioners, in view of considering the implications for the role of a counselling psychologist. There were nine interviews conducted with five healthcare practitioners and four clients. The professionals’ disciplines included: physiologist, dietician, health psychologist, programme manager, and a medical consultant. Of the four patients, two had accessed psychology services as part of their weight management programme and two had not. Data was analysed using thematic analysis. Five overarching themes were identified. Tension (pivotal central theme) this connected to: Lifestyle; Quality of Life (QoL); Service Delivery Model; and Professional and Personal beliefs and values. The findings highlighted that perceived importance of psychological support was influenced by an individuals’ background and experiences by both groups. The implications for the role of a counselling psychologist was to provide training to health professionals as well as raising clients’ awareness of the role of counselling and psychological support within such programmes. Further research is needed to understand better the potential of psychological support within weight management services to help contain UK obesity.
    • Hearing voices: first year undergraduate experience of audio feedback

      Dixon, Stephen (2017)
      Recent changes to the UK higher education sector, including a rise in numbers and diversification of the student body, resultant larger class sizes and student: staff ratios, greater modularisation of courses with fewer coursework assignments, and students having less face-to-face contact with teaching staff, have presented numerous challenges. The parallel rise in the use of digital technologies in professional practice, despite calls for their adoption in order to personalise learning, can often be seen to exacerbate the perceived dehumanising effect of this massification. Amid a growing discourse highlighting the importance of feedback to student learning, the focus of this study centres on the use of digital audio feedback with first year undergraduates. Eschewing the positivist approaches that are prevalent in learning technology studies, the aims of the research are to understand the student experience of audio feedback in order to inform both professional practice and policy. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with first year Education Studies undergraduates, the research is a phenomenological study of the lived experience of participants through open and honest dialogue in order to arrive at a situated and negotiated understanding. In conducting a deeper and structural investigation that researches with people, the study moves beyond any technologically deterministic view, and sets any understanding in the wider context of students’ own interpretation of the feedback process, and as such shifts the discourse from technological affordance to pedagogical experience. Whilst the use of audio feedback is seen to alleviate the failures of communication often identified in the feedback process, the findings are also seen to be significant in terms of dialogic perception, studentship and engagement, as well as facilitating a shift from statement to discourse and the possibility of establishing more meaningful learning relationships with students.
    • HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS: THE PURPOSE AND PRACTICE OF TRANSLATION, 1789-1827

      Hague, Paul (2015-12)
      The French Revolution has long been recognised as the crucial turning point in modern European history. The event is often cited as the beginning point for European Romanticism. Helen Maria Williams occupied a unique position at the crucible of events in post-revolutionary Paris. Having visited the capital in 1790 to attend the Fête de la Fédération on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, she was to spend the rest of her life endeavouring to communicate the originating ideals which she had first encountered there. Returning to France in 1791, she was naturalised as French in 1817 and remained in Paris until her death in 1827. Renowned for her poetry and most famously for the extensive body of political reportage contained in the 8 volumes of her Letters from France, Williams was also a translator, an aspect of her corpus which has been largely overlooked in academic research. It is in the collection of translations in which she finds her most Romantic expression. In the translations produced from Paris, Williams experiments with progressive European thought, both philosophically and linguistically, working towards a political and literary universalism influenced by contemporary French culture and by German thought arriving in France from members of the pre-unification states. As a successful salonnière, Williams became acquainted with many of the period’s leading figures, absorbing and reinterpreting spheres of influence in her translations. Literary translations, such as Paul and Virginia and The Leper of the City of Aoste, reside among the more prosaic works such as The Confidential and Political Correspondence of Lewis the Sixteenth to form a body of work which reveals Williams’s idiosyncratic practices and, most readily in the paratextual material of her many prefaces, her ideas as to the purpose of translation. 4 The idea of liminality is fundamental to our understanding of Williams’s life and work. Occupying the mysterious middle-ground, Williams resides in the space between nations, between cultures, languages, literary movements and historical-temporal thresholds. From this position she operates as mediator, not only of French literature, but of socio-political realities. Throughout her time in France she remained convinced of the truth of the originating revolutionist ideals she had first encountered in 1790 and she strived always to mediate and to re-inscribe, indeed to translate the French Revolution of 1789. The translations of Helen Maria Williams serve as the appropriate locus from which to suggest a reconfiguration of her importance in the canon of Romantic women writers and translators.
    • A hermeneutic phenomenological investigation of adult nurses’ concept of agency in clinical nursing care within hospital settings

      Matheson, David; Moyo, Nkosilathi; School of Nursing, Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing (University of Wolverhampton, 2022-10)
      A hermeneutic phenomenological investigation was undertaken to understand nurses’ concept of agency, or power to act, in clinical nursing care within hospital settings. It examined how free or constrained nurses felt in nursing care within their scope of practice. There were questions of what constituted freedom in nursing care. Data was gathered using stories from nurses’ experiences in clinical practice. A purposive homogeneous sample of twelve nurses was used in this study; all of whom were insiders as they were involved in clinical nursing care. This made it easier for them to understand the questions asked during their stories. The main themes which emerged were experiences and responsibilities in nursing care, the ability to provide nursing care, constraints in nursing care and collaborative nursing care. The findings revealed that nursing care has changed over time, and nurses are now doing more clinical skills, but at a closer look, freedom appeared limited. Nurses were able to initiate and deliver basic nursing care; however, in some aspects of care, including extended roles, nurses needed approval from doctors first. When the findings were subjected to poiesis, the concept of agency was further compounded by the characteristics of power and authority, structuration, the cognitive empire, and colonialism. Findings were discussed against the backdrop of the existing literature and theories. What made freedom an interesting concept in nursing care was that nurses could discuss their roles, responsibilities, and clinical nursing skills they had or did, but they were unable to define nursing as it had various meanings to them. It was then difficult for them to say what was freedom. Freedom, however, was whatever the nurse saw as such. It was indicative that nurses should be allowed to develop their epistemic knowledges, deliver nursing care the way they saw appropriate and utilise clinical skills they were competent to perform.
    • The hidden role: a focused ethnographic study of the nurse link tutor in higher education

      Paniagua, Hilary; Fuller, Pauline; Sadler Moore, Della; Clifton, Elizabeth Susan (University of Wolverhampton, 2019-08)
      Despite long standing debates relating to the role and function of the nurse teacher who acts as a link tutor in Higher Education, there is little understanding and evidence relating to their practice role. This focused ethnographic study sought to identify the role, the complexities and challenges, and future role requirements of the nurse link tutor, while supporting undergraduate, adult field nursing students on clinical placements. A guiding theoretical framework of symbolic interactionism used throughout this study contributed to an interpretation of the nurse link tutors' role from participants' perspectives and an understanding of the factors that affect and influence their role. This two phase study employed purposive sampling of nurse link tutors working in practice teams, spanning two hospital trusts. The first phase sought understanding using participant observation and informal interviews using the Developmental Research Sequence method (Spradley, 1979). Data collection in phase one took place over eleven months of field work, followed by a second phase focus group with the same nurse link tutors. The focus group helped to confirm findings from phase one as well as gain further insight into the role and future role requirements. Researcher reflexivity was important and integrated throughout this study. Data analysis in phase one applied domain and taxonomic analysis (Spradley, 1979) followed by Leininger's (1985) thematic and pattern analysis in the second phase. A symbolic interactionist approach used the application of “generic social processes” (Blumer, 1969; Prus, 1996) as an interpretive framework. The role was found to be emotionally demanding and a number of tensions and challenges were identified involving a constant juggling of an academic and practice role in order to support students in practice and enhance practice learning. This study revealed unknown aspects of the nurse link tutors' practice role, involving emotion work in the supportive aspects of their role in practice. This contributed to their professional nursing identity, however, the emotional labour they carried out remained hidden and unrecognised. Study recommendations for the nurse link tutor role, come at a time of new education standards for student nurse supervision and assessment (NMC, 2018) involving changes to roles in practice. However, in order for the nurse link tutor to fulfil a credible role in practice, there is a need for greater clarity of their role and support to enable them to juggle an academic and practice role. The emotion work and emotional labour they carry out should be made more visible and recognised. In order to develop and enhance their future professional role as nurse educators in practice they should be taking a leadership role and working with practice learning partners to enhance practice education. This study offers a contribution to knowledge of the insights into the emotion management perspective as applied to the nurse link tutor's experience of emotionality and how they manage their emotions to express their professional role identity.
    • Homeowner satisfaction and service quality in the repair of UK flood-damaged domestic property

      Proverbs, David G.; Samwinga, Victor (University of Wolverhampton, 2009)
      Flooding is a global challenge that has plagued mankind throughout history, affecting over 164 million people worldwide in 2007 alone. As the frequency of flooding increases in England and Wales coupled with an increase in the number of properties at risk of flooding and the attendant huge (insured) economic costs of flooding, the services received by homeowners during flood damage repair works, have not been spared criticism, Both the Welsh Consumer Council report and the Warwickshire Trading Standards report raised serious questions about the level of service in insurance claims for the repair of flood-damaged domestic property. This research project was therefore aimed at investigating the level of service quality and determinants of homeowners’ satisfaction in England and Wales with respect to flood damage repair works during insurance claims. A comprehensive literature review was conducted on customers’ needs, satisfaction and service quality, flooding and related issues, and the repair of flood damaged domestic property, in order to set the framework for the research and shape the development of the research questions/hypotheses. The study employed a two-phased sequential mixed methods approach, commencing with 20 in-depth interviews with homeowners, repairers, insurers and loss adjusters. Findings from the initial exploratory study (and from the literature review) informed the development of a questionnaire instrument, which incorporated elements of SERVQUAL, the generic service quality measurement instrument. Survey data were collected for the quantitative phase of the study from a sample of 126 homeowners, which was then analysed to test the hypotheses put forward in the study. The data did not yield a set of reliable and interpretable factors of service quality from the three service quality scales used to measure homeowners’ perceptions of the performance of insurers, loss adjusters and contractors. However, of the three key service providers, the contractor’s performance was the best predictor of homeowners’ overall satisfaction during flood damage reinstatement claims, accounting for seven times the combined unique contribution of insurance and loss adjusting firms. In addition, satisfaction levels were significantly different for homeowners whose claims for repair works were completed within six months compared to those repairs exceeded twelve months. The thesis concludes with implications of the findings for practice as well as recommendations for further research. It is argued that knowledge of the determinants of homeowners’ satisfaction with services during the repair of flood damaged property, is beneficial not only to insurers, loss adjusters and repairers but to homeowners as well.
    • Hospital nurses' attitudes to work: a case study of a Chinese hospital

      Feng, Feifei (2018-07-30)
      The aim of this study is to explore what the relevant factors of nurses' attitudes to and at work are. These include the separate but related hypotheses – the nature of the profession and changes in terms of management and training; the nature of the work situation including contracts and pay determination; and the nature of work relations as they impinge on nurse status including relations with co-workers and patients. All of which can be understood and compared with other workers in terms of both labour process and industrial relations as Goldthorpe (1968) did in the study of car workers. In the context of the contemporary Chinese social and political economy, the research also evaluates the roles of the government and how it affects nurses’ attitudes to the profession. It is grounded in a case study of 330 nurses in a Chinese public sector hospital, using questionnaires, interviews, and documentary evidence on government policies and hospital practices. The findings suggest that nurses at the case study hospital are frequently put under pressure due to the high number of patients they are expected to care for. This was caused by insufficient government funding for public sector hospitals, and the pressure to improve overall efficiency within the health service. The use of different types of employment contracts for nurses has caused strong resentment among nurses because it fails to award ‘equal pay for equal work’. In addition, the current system used in many Chinese hospitals for nurse education, recruitment, training and development, and pay have not helped establish realistic expectations of nursing or rewarded nurses for the work they do effectively.
    • How are changes to assessment in BTEC Early Years perceived as influencing the vocational nature of the curriculum?

      Dudley, Kate (2017)
      Changes within vocational education have been consistent within England (Wolf, 2011, p4.) and are currently increasing within the education of 16-19 year olds (ONS in City & Guilds, 2001 p6.). Included in those changes was a recent reform to BTEC. Stemming from this reform was the introduction of assessment changes. More specifically, an increase in controlled assessments and exams, especially within the Early Years sector, which forms the focus of this research. The introduction of such assessment methods offers a conflicting argument to the notion of creating Early Years practitioners with vocational and industry skills (Nutbrown, 2012). Within current education, students on Early Years vocational courses have voiced concerns that examined assessments do not provide them with the skillset they need for employment. In order to explore the true influence of assessment methods on student outcomes, a range of methods were used to ensure validity, and strengthen findings. Firstly, pre-existing data in the form of modular reviews provided student’s perceptions on how different assessment methods have prepared them for practice and supported their learning. These findings are explored alongside others from the five semi structured interviews gathered from members within one institution. This was used to compare how well assessment methods within the institution were supporting learners compared to the literary findings gathered within the literature review. Each of the data collection methods presented findings which support the need for Nutbrown’s (2012) concept of assessment methods to be industry related. Although, findings also indicated that the institution analysed in this research is considering ways to support the vocational and industry skills of their Early Years workers. However, clear evidence suggests that controlled assessment methods have not provided students with as good an outcome for both grades and skills as industry related assessment methods. Therefore, it is important to make recommendations for change. Following the recognition that the key assessments being used, in line with the BTEC reform, are not providing learners with the best industry related experience they could achieve. Several recommendations are made in line with the key research questions and address both institutions- including teachers and management - and policy writers.
    • How can pedagogic mediation develop better listening practices in early years settings?

      Pascal, Chris; Bertram, Tony; Williams-Brown, Zeta; Lyndon, Helen; School of Education, Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing (University of Wolverhampton, 2021-11)
      A praxeological approach provides the predominant paradigm for this thesis which is based in praxis and seeks to ensure an ethical approach throughout (Pascal and Bertram, 2012). In utilising ethnographic techniques and focusing on pedagogy this research is embedded within the early years sector. The research aims to explore pedagogic mediation as a context-based approach to professional development and an ethical way to develop listening practices within early years (Oliveira-Formosinho and Formosinho, 2012a). Pedagogic mediation provided the mechanism through which relationships with practitioners in three central research sites were developed over a period of two academic years. Pedagogic mediation has been cultivated in Portugal as a central tenet of Pedagogy in Participation (Formosinho and Formosinho, 2008). This research sought to transport this approach to England within the context of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and to explore how it could support pedagogic developments, in this case to better listen to children. Pedagogic mediation is considered in light of Kennedy’s (2005; 2014) model of continuing professional development (CPD), and this research demonstrates how it sits at the transformative end of this spectrum. The elements of pedagogic meditation are mapped through this thesis and the attributes of the mediator are explored to illuminate the role. Critical research interactions, defined as encountering within pedagogic mediation, were utilised to develop listening methods. The listening methods developed were as a result of a participatory approach as practitioners were the expert within their own context. A reflective field diary (Ortlipp, 2008) supported the research throughout and then specific listening methods were developed, most notably photo-elicitation, family voice and drawing methods, including an innovative graduated framework. Encountering research interactions were also mapped against Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological system theory (Bronfenbrenner and Ceci, 1993) to illustrate the range of processes and the aspects of societal influence which they represent. In one setting encountering research interactions tackled the complexities of process within the macrosystem demonstrating the ability of pedagogic mediation to shift ideological thinking well as daily practice. Overall, this research provides guidance on the role, responsibilities and attributes of the pedagogic mediator to support future CPD within the early years sector. Such mediated interactions have the opportunity to raise the consciousness (Freire, 1996) of a neglected workforce and to further support the professional development of the sector.
    • How do community nurses make sense of their experiences of providing end-of-life care for patients with dementia? An interpretative phenomenological analysis

      Matheson, David; Foster, Will; Ganga, Griffin; Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing (University of Wolverhampton, 2022-04)
      Aim: This research study aims to explore first-hand experiences of community nurses providing end-of-life dementia care (EOLDC) and the meanings they attribute to their experiences. Literature Review: An integrative review was conducted to gain an understanding of prevailing research and prevailing debates in EOLDC. Three themes emerged from the review namely; challenges in forming a therapeutic relationship in EOLDC, lack of specialist knowledge and skills in EOLDC and death anxiety and stress in EOLDC. Methodology and Methods: The study utilised a qualitative research approach; specifically, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). A purposive sample of six qualified community nurses with experience nursing terminally ill patients with dementia was recruited. Data were collected using face-to-face semi-structured interviews, audio taped and transcribed for analysis. Rather than an interview schedule, interview themes were utilised. Data were analysed in line with IPA, and transcripts were read multiple times. Emergent themes from individual transcripts were clustered into subordinate themes. Themes observed across multiple participant transcripts were clustered into superordinate themes. Findings: Findings from this study highlight the following superordinate themes: 1) pride and pleasure, 2) it is overwhelming, 3) objectification, and 4) upskilling. The superordinate themes are supported by the following ordinate themes: ‘it is gratifying to be a nurse’ and ‘there is no better feeling’; ‘it is stressful’ and ‘anguish and bad feelings’; ‘syringe driver’ and ‘that’s probably my coping mechanism’; ‘before it was just cancer’ and ‘a little more training’. Recommendations: Recommendations for professional practice emerging from this study are; use of the conceptual frame work in supporting nurse education in EOLDC and suggestions for policy makers to consider generic nurse education to bridge the skills gap highlighted in this study. Conclusion: This study showed that there are lines of tension in EOLDC. Although nurses found their work rewarding, they also claimed that it simultaneously exposed them to work-related stress, resulting in the use of self-care strategies to mitigate the consequences of the emotional labour involved. Finally, this study highlighted a gap in specialist EOLDC knowledge and skills among community nurses.
    • How do emotion regulation, attachment related anxiety and attachment related avoidance impact on the ability to resolve conflict in adolescence?

      Mercer, Tom; Guy, Alexa; Wesson, Caroline; Hitchens, Kellie; Institute of Human Sciences, Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing (University of Wolverhampton, 2022-04)
      Objectives: The current research explored the impact of attachment related anxiety, attachment related avoidance and emotion dysregulation upon conflict resolution style in adolescence. Methods: A mixed methods, sequential design was employed. Part one employed a quantitative methodology. Four multiple regression analyses were employed to assess the impact of attachment related anxiety, attachment related avoidance and emotion dysregulation upon four conflict resolution styles: positive problem solving, conflict engagement, compliance and withdrawal. Participants were 192 adolescents, aged 14 to 17 and were recruited from five secondary schools. Part two employed a qualitative methodology to further explore the themes that emerged from part one. Specifically the interviews aimed to explore in further detail the influence of attachment on choice of conflict resolution style. Overall, ten adolescents aged between 14 to 17 were recruited from one secondary school. Results: Overall quantitative results demonstrated that the DERS scores (emotion dysregulation) consistently impacted upon all conflict resolution styles. The DERS demonstrated positive relationships with the resolution styles of conflict engagement, compliance and withdrawal but a negative relationship with positive problem solving. The attachment variables however, did not consistently have an impact on all resolutions styles. Particularly, ECR-RS avoidance only made a significant contribution to resolution styles of compliance and positive problem solving demonstrating negative relationships. ECR-Anxiety made no significant contribution to any conflict resolution styles. The qualitative part of the study revealed three main themes, Relationship efficacy, Individual differences and Social constraints. Conclusions: Overall the current research highlighted that attachment and emotion dysregulation may contribute to the choice of conflict resolution styles in adolescents. Results indicated that attachment security may manifest in different ways for different individuals and thus their following conflict resolution styles. In addition to this, findings highlighted that both individuals within the conflict interaction may impact upon the conflict experience and behaviours utilised. Both the adolescent and the person they are in conflict with can be responsible for escalating or de-escalating the emotions of the other. The qualitative part of the research highlighted other factors such as diagnosis and social constructs including authority/consequences that may contribute to responses during conflict outside of attachment and emotion dysregulation. Overall, therapeutic work targeting better conflict resolution with adolescents should seek to understand the adolescent’s individual conflict experience and the factors within their own narrative to understand specific targets for appropriate intervention work.
    • How do Further Education (FE) teachers see their role changing in the future to exploit digital teaching and learning opportunities in an increasingly digital education environment?

      Traxler, John; Holt, Jayne (University of Wolverhampton, 2019-07)
      This research explores and reveals the complexity of Further Education (FE) teachers’ viewpoints in relation to digital teaching and learning technologies. The enquiry begins by reviewing the Government policies that surround digital learning technologies in Further Education (FE) and recognises the challenges that policy, reform, social, economic and educational changes present to the FE Sector. Policy suggests that changes in education may be necessary for developing skills that are required to live and work effectively in a globally connected world and for what the UK Government terms a modern Britain. This means teaching, learning and assessment in FE might need to change, which may lead to considerable changes to the role of the teacher. This research argues that government policy is underestimating the complexities of developing a culture of integrated digital teaching and learning technologies, and has a view too simplistic for the upskilling of teaching staff and transformation of the FE Sector with digital learning technologies. Q-methodology and qualitative semi-structured interviews have been used to illuminate the views of teachers and how they position themselves for using digital learning technologies in their teaching. By selecting a group of experienced teachers who are considered, by the College, to be advanced teachers and a second group of teacher-education (TED) students, the research demonstrates the nuances of the teaching habitus, whether evolving through long-term teaching experience or through the initial teacher-education (ITE) programme. This research explores the concept of the digital teaching habitus through Bourdieu’s theoretical lens of field, habitus and capital from which the participants are revealed to have a continuum of positions and level of digital capital at play within their digital teaching habitus. By interpreting these different emerging positions, several digital teaching habitus are identified with associated levels of digital capital for the participants. The teachers’ voice provides current knowledge on what teachers feel is important to the teacher-student relationship in a digital education environment and the prominence that FE teachers assign to managing students’ aspirations and to preparing students for their occupations and future workplaces.
    • How do psychological practitioners construct the meaning of parental alienation: a social constructionist approach

      Morgan, Angela; Bisconti, Maria; Ahmad, Nahid; Stewart, Rebecca; Institute of Human Sciences, Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing (University of Wolverhampton, 2021-12)
      There is growing recognition of parental alienation [PA] amongst family courts and social workers within the United Kingdom [UK]. PA primarily occurs in family custody disputes, where there is manipulation of a child by one parent against the other. This study was developed to address the complexity of the phenomenon by exploring how aware psychological practitioners are of PA, how they meaningfully construct PA, and the implications this may have for clinical practice. A qualitative approach was utilised using a social constructionist grounded theory [SCGT]. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews in two stages, with eight psychological practitioners (including one negative case analysis). Data gathering and analysis followed the grounded theory [GT] methodology. The analysis of data reflects how psychological practitioners utilised ‘Conceptual Manoeuvring’ to develop an emerging interpretation of the meaning of PA. Three key sub-processes were identified: (1) using pre-existing knowledge to open a new interpretative space; (2) co-constructing parental alienation; and (3) becoming aware. The analysis found that there are multiple ways in which participants co-constructed the meaning of PA, which had multiple implications for the consideration of psychological interventions and practice. As part of conceptually manoeuvring PA, all participants were able to recall possible cases of PA in their clinical work with individuals. However, for seven participants, their understanding of PA was initially based on assumption, due to an identified lack of self and others’ awareness. This appeared to raise uncertainty when considering relevant psychological theory and intervention for PA; but despite this, counselling approaches appeared more favourable. It was indicated by seven participants that due to the relational aspect to understanding PA, counselling approaches (such as Humanistic and Psychodynamic) appeared more favourable in comparison to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy [CBT] approaches. However, some CBT interventions (such as cognitive restructuring) were considered helpful. A negative case analysis was purposefully sought to strengthen the GT following interviews with seven participants. The negative case analysis reflected similar conceptual manoeuvring to construct PA; however, their construction of PA and consideration of therapeutic interventions provided richer insight into the phenomenon and appropriate interventions. The implications of the research appear to highlight the gap in awareness of PA among psychological practitioners within the UK, a need for defining terminology, the construct of PA, and identification of evidence-based treatment. This research has contributed towards developing awareness of PA and provides recommendations for future research.
    • How do veterans make sense of their disengagement from traditional exposure therapy and their subsequent engagement in a non-exposure based therapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?

      Hulbert-Williams, L.; Mills, Sarah (University of Wolverhampton, 2012-10)
      Research psychologists often complain that practitioners disregard research evidence whilst practitioners sometimes accuse researchers of failing to produce evidence with sufficient ecological validity. The tension that thus arises is highlighted, using the specific illustrative examples of two treatment methods for post-traumatic disorder (PTSD): Eye-Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) and exposure based interventions. Contextual reasons for the success or failure of particular treatment models that are often only tangentially related to the theoretical underpinnings of the models are discussed. Suggestions regarding what might be learnt from these debates are put forward and implications for future research are discussed.
    • How infant massage enhances pedagogical attachment in families facing challenging circumstances

      Rouse, Elizabeth (2018-12-05)
      This doctoral research project aimed to contribute a needed in-depth understanding of the effects of infant massage for families around the times they faced stressful life events. It was developed in response to Bennett, Underdown and Barlow’s 2013 meta-analysis and critique of studies examining the influence of infant massage on young babies’ health outcomes, and their recommendation that future studies explored the effects for groups they described as ‘higher risk’. The research was underpinned by five key concepts identified as potentially important themes, namely touch, intersubjectivity, attachment, resilience and infant massage. Located in the constructivist paradigm, and using a praxeological case study methodology, this qualitative study used methods including video, storyboarding, interviews and questionnaires with families and practitioners. The central ethical issues were around the assent, consent and voices of three infant-carer dyads who participated in the filming, and addressed through an innovative matrix of approaches to informed consent, and co-interpretation of the data with families. Infant massage was found to facilitate a unique multi-modal form of joint communication which I termed ‘visceral interaction’. This connectivity was set in a series of delicately balanced and nested environments (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) and was found to enhance carers’ understanding of infants’ cues, respect for them as individuals, and to support intersubjective and attachment relationships. Infant massage can offer families a special environment focusing on the infant-carer connection, and offering important respite from the challenges that may disrupt its development. However, the environments surrounding the families, and timing of the programme were found to be critical; the massage context needs to support infant and carer feelings of containment (Bion, 1962) and regulation (Gerhardt, 2015) as they adjust to a new life phase. Drawing on these findings, this study recommends that future research focuses on practices which may support families’ increased participation in this vital service, and that there is a move to widen the offer of compassionate, respectful and individualised services to all families at this critical early stage.
    • Hypertextuality in the diegesis of the megamusical: the aesthetic and cognitive relationship between silent era film and contemporary musical theatre

      Lovelock, James; Whitfield, Sarah; Pheasant-Kelly, Frances; Meers, Brandon; School of Performing Arts, Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences (University of Wolverhampton, 2023-03)
      This research regards the West End/Broadway musical as a hypertextual performance form through which early cinema aesthetics can be seen and felt by spectators. The ‘closed fictional worlds’ (Slugan, 2021: 142) presented by silent fiction films made between 1895 and 1930 echo those of stage megamusicals by virtue of their joint musicality and metatheatricality. From this understanding, the thesis offers a unique perspective on musical theatre by examining its conventions through the lens of silent era cinema. Accordingly, visual tropes, performance techniques and sound phenomena that are shared between European and North American silent films and contemporary musical theatre practices are uncovered throughout its chapters. Additionally, the study aims to confirm its interpretation of contemporary musicals as a ‘transmodalization’ (Genette, 1997: 395) of silent era cinema by grounding the mediums’ theatrical spaces in the corresponding bodily spaces of the hypothetical spectator. It achieves this with reference to Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development (Piaget, 1962; Piaget and Inhelder, 1969). Specific songs, scenes, and theatrical moments are extracted from an eclectic variety of musical theatre and silent film texts and are subjected to close readings across three theory chapters. Two case studies then illustrate the importance of musical theatre’s transtextuality in determining its unspoken link to cinema’s silent era. The first case study concerns a single narrative that is depicted in both The Sealed Room (Griffith, 1909) and the ‘Il Muto’ scene from Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera (1989). Through comparison, it argues that the stage musical’s apparatus is analogous to that of silent film making. The other case study elucidates the metatextual process of revision that characterises Joe Brooks and Dusty Hughes’ score for the short-lived British stage musical Metropolis (1989). It approaches the musical’s sound stimuli as a critical conflation of two contrasting silent film accompaniments, as opposed to a straightforward adaptation of Fritz Lang’s 1927 science-fiction classic. The collective findings of the thesis conclude that vestiges of silent film’s audio-visual aesthetic can be experienced through performances of many popular West End and Broadway productions in varying degrees of visibility. They indicate that megamusicals and silent films both present a distinctive type of diegesis that is palimpsestic, topographic, reflexive and postdramatic. Musical theatre’s hypertextuality is the key to accessing the elusive relationship and understanding that silent film felt much like the megamusical for its early twentieth century audiences.
    • “I was good when I didn’t have it”: giving the ‘ADHD child’ a voice: An interpretative phenomenological analysis.

      Leyland, Stephanie (2016-07)
      Presently it is estimated that 6.4 million children aged 4-17 have been diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (McClain and Burks, 2015). To date there has been very little attention to ADHD as a lived experience (Singh, 2011), or even taking into consideration the children’s own views, wishes or feelings (Brady, 2014). This paper offers an overview of the theories and research previously conducted, as well as considering how interactions between individual predispositions and environmental surroundings have shaped how the children experience their diagnoses. There are two classification systems currently in situ to diagnose children experiencing emotional and behavioural difficulties; however this dual system further hinders diagnosing and results in a lack of consistency and substantial reliance upon professional judgment. Even though there is an abundance of multimodal and holistic approaches available for this population, there is still a heavy reliance upon pharmacological treatments without knowing the longterm effects of using such medications. This research offers further understanding of these children and new ways of working with their difficulties and therefore improving their emotional well-being and resilience for the future. Keywords: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD); Treatment and diagnosis; Lived experience; Cultural and contextual influences; Participation and voice