Su Morris
I am a in the final year of my PhD studies at UCL-Institute of Education and Birkbeck, which is fully funded by a Bloomsbury Colleges Studentship.
I am examining relationships between global and local processing, and success on
a range of different maths and science problems. Global processing refers to the perception of the whole stimulus, while local processing is the perception of individual elements of the whole. Adults typically demonstrate a bias towards global processing, where the global level is perceived more quickly and is less affected by an incongruent local level. My study stems from research highlighting the relatively high proportion of people working in industries associated with science, technology, engineering, or maths who have close relatives with autism, or who are autistic themselves. Research has shown that people with autism can exhibit enhanced local processing abilities, as well as an ability to use global processing when the task requires. However, the direct link between local / global processing and maths and science achievement in typically developing children has not been previously explored.
In general, I am interested in the contribution educational neuroscience can make to furthering our understanding of teaching and learning. Educational neuroscience is an emerging field bringing together education, neuroscience, psychology and cognitive science in order to develop understanding of how we learn. This may enable us to develop our understanding of why particular teaching and learning methods are successful, integrate behavioural and neuroimaging research to better understand why some children find some activities more challenging, and perhaps longer term, develop resources, training or support which can be used in our schools.
Last updated January 2018
I am a in the final year of my PhD studies at UCL-Institute of Education and Birkbeck, which is fully funded by a Bloomsbury Colleges Studentship.
I am examining relationships between global and local processing, and success on
a range of different maths and science problems. Global processing refers to the perception of the whole stimulus, while local processing is the perception of individual elements of the whole. Adults typically demonstrate a bias towards global processing, where the global level is perceived more quickly and is less affected by an incongruent local level. My study stems from research highlighting the relatively high proportion of people working in industries associated with science, technology, engineering, or maths who have close relatives with autism, or who are autistic themselves. Research has shown that people with autism can exhibit enhanced local processing abilities, as well as an ability to use global processing when the task requires. However, the direct link between local / global processing and maths and science achievement in typically developing children has not been previously explored.
In general, I am interested in the contribution educational neuroscience can make to furthering our understanding of teaching and learning. Educational neuroscience is an emerging field bringing together education, neuroscience, psychology and cognitive science in order to develop understanding of how we learn. This may enable us to develop our understanding of why particular teaching and learning methods are successful, integrate behavioural and neuroimaging research to better understand why some children find some activities more challenging, and perhaps longer term, develop resources, training or support which can be used in our schools.
Last updated January 2018
Publications
Tolmie, A. K., Ghazali, Z. and Morris, S. (2016), Children's science learning: A core skills approach. British Journal of Educational Psychology. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12119
Tolmie, A. K., Ghazali, Z. and Morris, S. (2016), Children's science learning: A core skills approach. British Journal of Educational Psychology. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12119