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By Aimee Cole
Academic placement with the Nationwide Literacy Belief
Once I started my Psychology course at Sussex again in 2019, I wasn’t in any respect positive the place I needed my diploma to take me. My pursuits have been broad, starting from psychopathology to sports activities psychology. I additionally had a eager curiosity in social justice and knew I needed to work in a task the place I felt I may make a optimistic contribution. I simply couldn’t image how these pursuits may culminate in an fascinating and acceptable job position. Amongst this, I additionally skilled lots of anxiousness, and couldn’t think about feeling assured in an unfamiliar office. Little did I do know that my placement on the Nationwide Literacy Belief would remodel me from a nervous scholar right into a assured, printed researcher and convention presenter.
The Nationwide Literacy Belief is an unbiased charity that empowers youngsters, younger individuals, and adults with the literacy abilities they should succeed. My instructional placement sat inside the analysis workforce, who (to massively simplify the work that they do right into a sentence) conduct bespoke analysis within the area of literacy and past, in addition to inner and exterior evaluations of literacy-related programmes.
Working with the analysis workforce enabled me to strengthen the talents I had developed as a part of my diploma, together with creating literature evaluations and writing experiences, but in addition led to new abilities together with information evaluation utilizing SPSS, and amassing analysis information for inner programmes. The location required me to collaborate with groups throughout the organisation and constructed on my confidence to advocate for the significance of our analysis and analysis work each internally and externally.
My dissertation
When it got here to deciding on a dissertation subject, I knew that I needed to make use of information collected by the Nationwide Literacy Belief. The charity’s Annual Literacy Survey asks youngsters and younger individuals throughout the UK about their literacy behaviours and attitudes, amongst different areas of curiosity, and is the biggest survey of its form. In 2022, the survey included further questions on youngsters and younger individuals’s consciousness of environmental points, and any behaviours they engaged in to help or shield the setting.
In mild of the local weather disaster, environmental points are one thing I care deeply about, and I’ve spent lots of time researching and studying concerning the issues that we will do to help the environment. This analysis typically materialised in studying blogs, articles, or books- I had not too long ago devoured ‘Hothouse Earth’ by Invoice McGuire. Studying concerning the local weather disaster on this manner bought me thinking- Was I extra more likely to, say, develop into vegan, as a result of I learn extra repeatedly concerning the setting? How would my environmental consciousness differ from somebody who, for instance, didn’t devour a lot textual content in any respect?
The analysis
Finally, my dissertation examined the connection between younger individuals’s studying engagement and each their environmental consciousness and pro-environmental motion. This was not associated to studying particularly concerning the setting, however any studying in any respect, and included enjoyment, confidence, and frequency of studying. General, information from 50,238 youngsters and younger individuals aged from 11 to 16 was included within the evaluation.
The outcomes confirmed a optimistic correlation between studying engagement and each environmental consciousness and motion. This urged that the upper you scored on the studying engagement rating, the upper you scored in your consciousness of environmental points, and the variety of actions you engaged in to help the setting.
Extra in-depth evaluation additionally discovered that environmental consciousness may partially clarify the connection between studying engagement and every day environmental motion (e.g., ‘I do issues to help the setting in my on a regular basis life’), however not exterior environmental motion (e.g., ‘I’ve written to somebody in energy concerning the setting’).
As such, my analysis discovered that studying may act as a pathway to enhancing younger individuals’s consciousness of environmental points and engagement in actions to guard the planet. The research was the primary to research and supply proof of such a relationship within the UK.
Making analysis accessible
The Nationwide Literacy Belief goals to work in the direction of a extra equal society, and a key aspect of that’s by way of making our work accessible to as many individuals as potential. As such, along with my analysis report being printed on the Nationwide Literacy Belief’s web site (see Cole, 2023), I labored intently with the charity’s Social Media Supervisor, Hannah Riley, to seek out inventive methods to show the findings. As you will notice under, I felt it did the trick in pulling some robust key messages from a posh report!
![](https://i2.wp.com/blogs.sussex.ac.uk/psychology/files/2024/02/Can-I-Read-to-save-the-planet.png?resize=550%2C657&ssl=1)
What’s subsequent?
General, my analysis highlighted the significance of selling studying engagement in younger individuals to boost environmental consciousness and motion. This can be by way of instructional initiatives, or public campaigns which leverage the hyperlink between studying and environmental engagement, to boost consciousness, and encourage motion. For instance, groups inside the Nationwide Literacy Belief are already starting to include studying about environmental points into their programmatic work with youngsters and younger individuals, and the report is already getting used throughout the organisation to help the work we do with companions which have an curiosity within the setting and sustainability. Given the shortage of analysis on this space inside the UK, I hope that this analysis sparks curiosity for others, and results in extra work on this area.
You’ll be able to learn the complete report, right here: Can I learn to avoid wasting the planet? | Nationwide Literacy Belief
With particular due to Christina Clark, Anne Teravainen-Goff and Irene Picton from the Nationwide Literacy Belief, and Jane Oakhill, from the College of Sussex, who supervised this analysis dissertation.
![](https://i2.wp.com/blogs.sussex.ac.uk/psychology/files/2024/02/Aimee-2-1.jpg?resize=550%2C911&ssl=1)
Aimee Cole is a 2023 first-class graduate of the College of Sussex’s College of Psychology. After finishing her third-year placement with the Nationwide Literacy Belief, she continued working for his or her analysis workforce and was promoted to a full-time place as Analysis Supervisor upon finishing her diploma. She is especially within the hyperlink between literacy engagement, environmental consciousness and optimistic psychological wellbeing.
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