Mark Turner

I am the Associate Head for Education in the Department of Psychology responsible for the day-to-day management and development of our taught programmes. I have been lecturing in psychology at Portsmouth since 1995. Prior to that, I completed my PhD at the University of Southampton Institute of Sound & Vibration Research where I also worked as a Research Assistant for four years. The focus of my PhD work investigated the physical and psychological causes of motion sickness. I also hold an MSc in Information Systems Design and undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Portsmouth.

I lecture on subjects including Psychological Testing & Assessment, Psychological Research Methods, Survey Design, Data Analysis and SPSS to undergraduate and postgraduate psychology students, and to other postgraduate research students in the University. I have also taught specialised applied psychology options to final year psychology students in the study of Human Factors and Human-Computer Interaction.

I have a keen interest in student progression after university and the impact that placement learning has on student employability. I have previously introduced different sandwich-year and day placements options as part of our undergraduate programmes within the department for students who wish to gain work experience with external organisations during their degree. More recently I have also established a Social Enterprise option that allows students to explore how psychology can make a contribution within society through businesses aimed at helping others. I am also a personal tutor to undergraduate psychology students and a final year dissertation supervisor.

My main research work is in the area of applied psychology, specifically the personal and social impact of technology. I have authored and co-authored academic papers on a range of human factors issues including mobile HCI and interface design; mediated communication, online impression formation, self-presentation in employability contexts; well-being and age related effects of technology; visual perception; the use of virtual displays; and the aetiology of car, air and sea-sickness.

I am an EFPA accredited European Test User (Level 2: Work & Organisational Assessment) and qualified with the British Psychological Society’s Register of Competence in Psychological Testing (Level A; Level B Intermediate Plus).