Review of NIBPS Conference 2017
Nestled amongst the beautiful mature woodlands at the gateway to the Cooley Peninsula, Ballymascanlon House was the venue for the 2017 Northern Ireland British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference. For the first time, the organisation invited undergraduate submissions for a round of both oral and poster presentations, allowing students from North and South of the border to meet, network and present to each other.
The research of four final year students from Maynooth University was chosen for oral presentation and the group travelled with hopes of taking home some accolades from our UK counterparts. Selected for her highly commended work on the topic of ‘Self-Esteem, Self-Concept and Body Image in Adolescents with and without Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus’ Niamh Doody did the honours for the Department for Psychology with Ulster University taking home the top undergraduate award for Emma Nolan’s research on ‘Testing the multi-dimensional nature of political beliefs and their relationship with paranoia, deservedness, conspiracy and religiosity’. Also highly commended was Anne Doherty of Ulster University who researched ‘Factorial validity of the Maslach Burnout Inventory in UK social workers’.
Travelling with Niamh were Christine Mulligan (‘Communication Skills Training for Palliative Care Health Professionals: Assessing the Long-Term Impact’), Mairead Healy (‘Improving Pitch Perception: Reopening Critical-Period-like Learning Through Auditory and Visual Disinhibition Tasks in Adult Musicians’) and Sinead C Kavanagh (‘A study examining Complementary and Alternative medicine (CAM) use and its relationship with Attitudes towards CAM, Holistic Health and Locus of Control of Behaviour, in Adults with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and/or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) in Ireland’). The Keynote Speaker on Thursday was Prof. Peter Kindermen and the topic was Community Wellbeing. A very enjoyable conference was had by all and those attending would recommend future undergraduate students take up the opportunity to participate in, what is set to become, a regular segment of the NIBPS annual conference.
Full details of all Undergraduate submissions to the NIBPS17 can be viewed here
while all abstracts and speakers throughout the conference are available here
Review by Sinead C. Kavanagh