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Yearly Archives: 2014
MSc Health Psychology International Visits
All our MSc students are eligible to join Coventry University Global Leaders Programme. As well as many networking and personal/professional development activities, this may also involve trips overseas, organised, supported and subsidised by the university.
Two of our current students are active participants in Global Leaders. One has travelled to Hong Kong and the other will soon be visiting India. Further details of their adventures to follow.
Find out more about Global Leaders by clicking on the link above, or follow them on Facebook.
If you would like to suggest a site for students to visit, please do get in touch.
Midlands Health Psychology Network Conference February 2015
Our good friends in the Midlands Health Psychology Network (MHPN) recently announced the date for their annual conference. This will be Thursday 19th February 2015 at the University of Derby.
The MHPN conference is a great opportunity for researchers (early stage and more established) to present their work, and for MSc and PhD students to present their dissertations or placement work, while engaging with respected and experienced academics within the field. At Coventry we encourage all our health psych students to attend the conference, and give credit for attendance as part of the professional practice module. You can read about our students’ experience of attending here.
Please see attached the call for abstracts and don’t forget to take a look at the MHPN website for further information.
For specific queries please email the MHPN direct mail@mhpn.co.uk
Health psych masters: Times and rooms of first classes
Full-time students attend both Tuesday and Thursday classes.
Part-time students attend classes on Tuesdays only in their first year and on Thursdays only in their second year.
Tuesday classes for Semester one Autumn/Winter 2014
M96PY Health Promotion & Behaviour Change
Richard Crossman Building RC143 1-3 pm
M140PY Advanced Quantitative Research Methods
Richard Crossman Building RC123 3-6 pm
Thursday classes for Semester one Autumn/Winter 2014
M98PY Biopsychosocial Approaches to Stress, Health and Illness
Richard Crossman Building RC250 1-3 pm
M145PY Introducing Professional Practice in Health Psychology
James Starley Building JS218 3.30-5.30 pm
The rooms indicated are for the first week only (week beginning 29th September 2014). Please see your module guides for details of week by week schedule and rooms. Module guides are available on cu online once you have enrolled.
More details on MSc health psych induction 23 September
Please come to room JA143 in the Jaguar Building for 09.45 prompt.
9.45 – 10.00 | Arrival and Registration |
10.00 – 10.10 | Welcome from the Faculty Dean’s Representative |
10.10 – 10.30 | An Introduction to the Student Rep System |
10.30 – 10.45 | Getting to know you… |
10.45 – 11.30 | Studying at Coventry University |
11.30 – 11.45 | Coffee break |
11.45 – 12.30 | Studying at Postgraduate Level |
12.30 – 1.00 | Moodle Briefing |
1.00 – 2.00 | Lunch & Meet the Course Teams |
2.00 – 2.30 | Library Induction Session |
2.30 – 3.30 | YOUR Health Psychology Masters |
3.30 – 4.30 | Students to Collect Student Cards |
Increasing physical activity and healthy eating behaviours in South Asian communities
The health psych team is sending our best wishes to colleague Krishna Bhatti who will be presenting her research at next week’s BPS Division of Health Psychology Annual Conference. Krishna’s poster will present findings from her pilot of a culturally adapted theoretically based intervention to increase physical activity and healthy eating behaviours in South Asian communities. Krishna did this work as part of her Professional Doctorate in Health Psychology.
If you check out the academic programme for the conference you’ll get a sense of the wide range of topics covered by health psychology.
Devices to monitor personal health: an opportunity for student research
Inspired by David Sedaris’ tale in The New Yorker (he cheerfully combines healthy exercise with compulsive litter picking) I decided to invest in a Fitbit. This neat little wrist band has the facility to record the number of steps you take in any given day, as well as monitoring some aspects of sleep duration and quality.
Many people now use Fitbits to monitor their health, and use the companion website (and various apps and add-ons) to record dietary, drinking and other health behaviours. An Apple device that promises to record the same data and more is due out in spring 2015.
Health psychology trainees starting this autumn are well placed to design studies exploring the impact of Fitbit and other personal health monitoring devices. US users can already sign up to earn material rewards for their physical activity. If the same incentives were introduced in the UK, how effective might they be in motivating behaviour change?
The Fitbit can only record a limited range of data at present, and users have to enter honestly any deviations from their planned dietary schedule. If the Fitbit doesn’t know, do the calories still count 😉 ?
Carol P
MSc Health Psych Timetable for 2014/15
Teaching Days
Classes run on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Semesters
Semester one
Classes run for 11 weeks – from the week beginning 29th September to the week beginning 8th December.
There is a three week break over Christmas and the New Year (15 Dec – 2 Jan).
Some assessments (class tests or exams) for this semester may take place in the weeks beginning 5th and 12th January.
Semester two
Classes run for 11 weeks – from the week beginning 19th January to the week beginning 16th March AND the weeks beginning 13th and 20th April.
There is a three week break over Easter (23 March – 10 April).
Some assessments (class tests or exams) for this semester may take place in the weeks beginning 27th April and 4th May.
Semester three
This runs for 11 weeks from the week beginning 11th May but has no timetabled classes for MSc students on the health psych masters programmes.
Some work may be due for assessment during this period.
Full-time vs. Part-time
Full-time students take all the modules listed for the MSc Health Psychology, i.e. they attend Tuesdays and Thursdays in both semester one and semester two.
Part-time students in year one attend only Tuesday’s modules (both semesters)
Part-time students in year two attend only Thursday’s modules (both semesters)
Details
Further details of times and dates of individual modules class times to follow.
Coursework deadlines
A full list of coursework deadlines will be provided when you attend induction day. Details of work required on each individual module will be provided in the module guide. These guides will be available to you on our online learning system once you enrol for the course.
Module leaders
Each module has a named member of staff who leads it. This person takes overall administrative responsibility for the module and may also deliver some of the teaching. Most modules include a variety of guest speakers, some internal and some external to the university.
Induction for new students starting this autumn
A quick reminder about induction for new students.
You are invited to attend an induction to your course 09.30 until 16.30 Tuesday 23rd September 2014 on our Coventry campus.
Further details on building and room to follow.
Lunch will be provided and we are looking forward to meeting you.