Students and supervisors
Research projects for 2026/27
For supervisors
If you supervise MSc, MRes or doctoral projects, we can supply a one-page project brief for any of the areas below, written so that you can list it under your own name. Email us and we will send it the same week.
We are also open to acting as project partner on a collaborative or CASE studentship, including as industrial supervisor, and to being written into a Doctoral Training Partnership application.
We are equally interested in hearing from doctoral students already in programme who need an additional empirical study, and from trainees on professional doctorates in educational and child psychology or clinical psychology choosing a thesis topic.
For students: MSc, MRes, PhD and professional doctorates
Choosing or proposing a project this year? These are the areas where we have open research questions, in game-based cognitive assessment of attention and executive function in children aged 7 to 11.
The questions draw on research into attention and executive function in children, including children with ADHD.
What a project can be this year. Projects can be completed without any child data: systematic review, methods and simulation work, or design and measurement critique. Interviews or expert reviews with teachers, SENCOs or therapists are also possible now, with your university’s ethics approval. A first playable build is expected in November 2026, and usability, acceptability or empirical studies with children would follow from spring 2027 under your university’s ethics approval.
How it works. Supervision stays with your university. We provide the design documents under a confidentiality agreement, access to the build, clinical input from an HCPC-registered speech and language therapist, and a named contact. Your right to submit your dissertation or thesis, and to publish findings whether or not they favour the product, is protected. We ask only for a short review before publication to remove confidential information.
Seven topic areas
Each topic has specific open questions behind it. We share those, with the design, once you get in touch.
- Retest effects in repeated assessment
- Gamification and measurement validity
- Ecological validity across settings
- Language and literacy confounds
- Engagement and attrition over time
- Psychometrics of brief measures
- Visual design and stimulus discriminability
1. Retest effects in repeated assessment
How do practice and retest effects change game-based measures of attention and executive function in primary-age children across repeated administrations?
- Possible now, with no child data (suits MSc and MRes)
- A systematic review or meta-analysis of practice and retest effects on attention and executive function tasks in children aged 7 to 11, or a simulation study of how retest gains affect the interpretation of change across repeated administrations.
- From spring 2027, with children (suits PhD and professional doctorates)
- Estimating retest effects across repeated administrations of game-based tasks, and comparing ways of adjusting for them.
- Suggested fields
- psychological research methods · developmental science · statistics and quantitative methods
- Background reading
- Scharfen, J., Peters, J. M. and Holling, H. (2018). Retest effects in cognitive ability tests: a meta-analysis. Intelligence.
2. Gamification and measurement validity
Does adding game features change what a cognitive task measures, and does the effect differ between children?
- Possible now, with no child data (suits MSc and MRes)
- A systematic review of studies comparing gamified and standard versions of the same cognitive task, with a focus on children, or a structured critique of which game features are most likely to change what a task measures.
- From spring 2027, with children (suits PhD and professional doctorates)
- Comparing game-based and standard versions of a task with the same children, and testing whether the difference varies between children.
- Suggested fields
- cognitive neuroscience · experimental psychology · human–computer interaction
- Background reading
- Lumsden, J., Edwards, E. A., Lawrence, N. S., Coyle, D. and Munafò, M. R. (2016). Gamification of cognitive assessment and cognitive training: a systematic review of applications and efficacy. JMIR Serious Games.
3. Ecological validity across settings
Are measures taken at home and in the classroom equivalent, and how does the setting affect performance?
- Possible now, with no child data (suits MSc and MRes)
- A review of evidence comparing supervised and unsupervised cognitive testing in children, or interviews with teachers and SENCOs about classroom conditions during computer-based activities.
- From spring 2027, with children (suits PhD and professional doctorates)
- Comparing performance at home and at school for the same children, and modelling the effect of setting.
- Suggested fields
- educational and child psychology, including doctorate trainees · psychological research methods
- Background reading
- Chaytor, N. and Schmitter-Edgecombe, M. (2003). The ecological validity of neuropsychological tests: a review of the literature on everyday cognitive skills. Neuropsychology Review.
4. Language and literacy confounds
How can reading level and English as an additional language be separated from attention in game-based tasks?
- Possible now, with no child data (suits MSc and MRes)
- A review of how reading and language demands affect children’s scores on attention and executive function tasks, including children learning English as an additional language, or an expert review of on-screen instructions by speech and language therapists or teachers.
- From spring 2027, with children (suits PhD and professional doctorates)
- Comparing performance across reading levels and language backgrounds.
- Suggested fields
- speech and language therapy · language sciences · education
- Background reading
- Gooch, D., Thompson, P., Nash, H. M., Snowling, M. J. and Hulme, C. (2016). The development of executive function and language skills in the early school years. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
5. Engagement and attrition over time
What sustains children’s engagement with a repeated digital assessment over months, and what predicts drop-out?
- Possible now, with no child data (suits MSc and MRes)
- A systematic review of engagement and drop-out in repeated digital assessments and digital health studies with children, or interviews with parents and teachers about what helps or gets in the way of regular play.
- From spring 2027, with children (suits PhD and professional doctorates)
- Modelling engagement and drop-out over several months, and which factors predict them.
- Suggested fields
- human–computer interaction design · games user research · developmental science
- Background reading
- Eysenbach, G. (2005). The law of attrition. Journal of Medical Internet Research.
6. Psychometrics of brief measures
How reliable and valid are short measures in small samples, before large reference samples exist?
- Possible now, with no child data (suits MSc and MRes)
- Simulation studies of the reliability of short measures in small samples, or a review of methods for estimating reliability before large reference samples exist.
- From spring 2027, with children (suits PhD and professional doctorates)
- Estimating the reliability of brief game-based measures from early data.
- Suggested fields
- psychometrics and psychological measurement · statistics · data science
- Background reading
- Hedge, C., Powell, G. and Sumner, P. (2018). The reliability paradox: why robust cognitive tasks do not produce reliable individual differences. Behavior Research Methods.
7. Visual design and stimulus discriminability
How does the visual treatment of an on-screen task change how easily children tell one thing from another, and what does that do to performance?
- Possible now, with no child data (suits MSc and MRes)
- A review of how visual properties such as size, contrast and similarity affect children’s errors and response times on on-screen tasks, or a study with adult participants on how easily stimuli can be told apart.
- From spring 2027, with children (suits PhD and professional doctorates)
- Testing whether changes to visual treatment change children’s performance.
- Suggested fields
- cognitive neuroscience · vision and perception · experimental psychology
- Background reading
- Wolfe, J. M. and Horowitz, T. S. (2017). Five factors that guide attention in visual search. Nature Human Behaviour.