Psychology alumna returns to Dundee

One of the Department of Psychology's star alumni recently returned to the University to work with her former lecturer Dr Suzanne Zeedyk.

Ruth Woods graduated in 1997 with first class honours in Psychology and remained here to complete her Masters, for which she achieved distinction. She is currently in the final stages of her PhD at Brunel University in London.

Ruth was awarded a Postgraduate Study Visits scheme grant from the British Psychological Society (BPS) that enabled her to return to the University for a period of two weeks and she was delighted to have the chance to work with Suzanne again. She says, "The undergraduate courses I did with Suzanne were really influential in my decision to carry on with my studies in Psychology at Masters and PhD level. She has been formative in my research, not only in terms of what I learned in her class as an undergraduate, but also in the encouragement, enthusiasm and support she gave me during my Masters and PhD"

During her two weeks in Dundee, Ruth used data collected by Suzanne's lab to carry out 'coding' of infant behavior, examining the ways in which children mimic other children and adults. As Suzanne has previously carried out research into the developmental implications of how children imitate their mothers, Ruth was able to draw on her expertise. They will be publishing a joint paper based on the work they've done during the visit in the psychology journal, 'Psychological Science' later this year.

Having now returned to London, Ruth is concentrating on completing her PhD, which is a study into children's friendships, focusing upon three key areas of children's friendships and games, multiculturalism and 'telling tales'. She spent two years in classrooms and the playground at a primary school in west London, which enabled her to observe a range of children at close hand using ethnographic observational techniques. She has used the information she gleaned, along with interviews and tasks, as the basis of her study.

Ruth explains, "I got to know the children really well over the two years that I spent at their school and I saw at first hand how they are affected by contemporary culture and events. A lot of the girls I worked with played a version of the Big Brother television programme in the playground - they are very aware of fashion and music and what's on television.

I started at the school around the time of September 11 and I noticed how the children reacted to that and how much the fear of plane crashes had become part of their consciousness, especially as the school was close to Heathrow airport."

Suzanne said, "It has been fantastic to welcome Ruth again to Dundee. My research team have benefited from the many hours we've had to sit discussing our data - an indulgence all too infrequent in academics these days! This is the first time the Department has had the opportunity to participate in the BPS Visiting Fellowship Scheme, and based on our experience this time, we'll certainly be looking for more such possibilities in the future."