Journal Club
Contents
Introduction
In addition to your core modules and skills training programme we run a weekly Journal Club. Attendance at the Journal Club is strongly recommended as it provides a forum for discussing essential module readings and dissertation projects as well as offering opportunities to further develop your generic skills including verbal communication and professionalism.
Participating in journal club is an excellent opportunity for you to develop your academic skills in reading, appraising, and discussing health psychology research. When you take part in these discussions, the facilitator will give you helpful, constructive and supportive verbal feedback about your attempts to understand, summarise and critically appraise articles and to communicate clearly and confidently. You will also have the opportunity to learn from your peers and to help each other to improve your skills.
Journal club is also an informal opportunity to discuss your learning and the programme in general with each other and with the Journal Club facilitator. Indeed, it provides a great forum for you to share much-appreciated feedback and suggestions with the programme team, via the Journal Club facilitator.
The Journal Club will be facilitated by Lauren Towler. Please contact the facilitator if you have any questions or suggestions about Journal Club.
Aims and Learning outcomes
By the end of the Journal Club you will be able to:
- Demonstrate knowledge of key concepts in Health Psychology relevant to your core modules
- Review and discuss qualitative and quantitative research designs and methodologies
- Critically appraise published research
- Apply practical strategies to improve the efficiency of your reading and note taking
- Apply practical strategies to improve your academic writing skills
- Manage the process of writing, submitting and reviewing a paper for an academic peer-reviewed journal
Summary of content
The journal papers for each meeting will be selected from the PSYC6001, PSYC6002, and PSYC6003 essential reading lists and advertised in advance. Additional topics and papers for meetings during the Summer will be driven by student interests and individual dissertation projects.
The papers and themes for each week are listed on the Journal Club Blackboard site (www.blackboard.soton.ac.uk).
Members of the Journal Club take it in turns to chair the meetings and summarise the selected papers.
The Journal Club primarily provides a forum for discussing key concepts in Health Psychology and building your knowledge base. Additionally, each meeting also focuses on a particular generic research skill and provides you with opportunities to develop and practice those skills (e.g. critically appraising research design, academic writing, reviewing a journal paper, communication and persuasion, etc.).
To get the most out of Journal Club it is strongly encouraged that you read the selected journal papers ahead of each meeting. You are not be required to complete any additional preparatory work.
Summary of assessment methods
There is no assessment for Journal Club. By participating in the club you will receive formative feedback.
Timetable
The Journal Club is not shown on your timetable, so it is important to take a note of these details! Journal club meets once a week throughout Semester 1 and Semester 2, on Wednesdays from 2-3pm. Depending on student interest we may also meet over the summer.
Please check Blackboard for further details, including location.