"PhD Studentship: The impact of multisensory science activities on pupils with vision impairment (Leverhulme Trust Research Grant)"

This is a 4 year fully funded PhD opportunity which will investigate the impact of accessible science activities on interests and aspirations of pupils with vision impairment. The PhD studentship will involve the design of accessible experiments and activities that link to national curriculum (Key Stages 3-5) topics. These could include tactile models or olfactory experiments (www.chembam.com/vi). The student will work with the supervisors and teachers in partner schools to test the activities in a classroom setting and evaluate their effectiveness for pupils with vision impairment and sighted pupils. We will also conduct surveys to study the experience of pupils with vision impairment in science classroom and what factors dissuade them from pursuing science subjects. Finally, we will run some longitudinal studies to investigate whether regular use of multisensory science activities encourages pupils with VI to pursue science subjects to a higher level.

This project will be co-supervised by members of the Schools of Chemistry and Education at the University of Birmingham. We are looking either for a student with a science degree who is passionate about communication, or a student of psychology/education who has A-levels in science subjects.

The project will be supervised by Dr Zoe Schnepp (z.schnepp@bham.ac.uk). For information on how to apply, please see: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/centres-institutes/research-in-chemical-engineering/chemical-engineering-phddoctoral-research-degrees