Teaching Philosophy

My teaching philosophy is founded on the belief that research methods should be taught as a process of scientific reasoning rather than as a collection of statistical procedures. The purpose of research methods education is not simply to teach students how to perform analyses, but to help them understand how scientific conclusions are constructed, justified, and critically evaluated. Students often learn statistical techniques without fully appreciating the assumptions that underpin them or the scientific questions they are capable of answering. My aim is therefore to help students develop the judgement required to select, evaluate, and interpret methods critically, rather than simply apply them correctly.

Across my teaching, I present research as a sequence of interconnected decisions linking theory, conceptualisation, measurement, analysis, and inference. By understanding how each stage shapes the next, students learn that statistical methods are not ends in themselves but tools for investigating psychological phenomena. I encourage students to view research as a process of developing and evaluating competing explanations, recognising that valid scientific inference depends upon the alignment of theoretical questions, measurement strategies, analytical methods, and interpretation.

My teaching draws heavily on authentic methodological problems arising from my own research, including model identifiability, psychometric structure, informative missingness, and measurement distortion. Rather than asking only whether an analysis has been performed correctly, I encourage students to ask whether the chosen approach faithfully represents the phenomenon under investigation, whether its assumptions are justified, and whether the resulting evidence supports the conclusions being drawn. I have found that connecting abstract statistical concepts to real research problems strengthens students' quantitative confidence while fostering deeper engagement with scientific reasoning.

This philosophy has informed my teaching across undergraduate, honours, and postgraduate psychology, including research methods, statistics, and perception and cognition. It has also guided the development of online R training resources, supervision of honours and postgraduate research projects, evaluation of educational outcomes, and individual statistical consultation. Most importantly, I aim to create an inclusive learning environment in which students from diverse educational, cultural, and disciplinary backgrounds feel confident engaging with quantitative methods, recognising that scientific thinking develops most effectively when students are supported to question assumptions, learn from uncertainty, and participate actively in the process of discovery.

Ultimately, my goal is to contribute to research methods education that equips future psychologists not only with technical competence, but with the capacity to evaluate evidence critically, distinguish between competing scientific explanations, and make rigorous, transparent, and defensible scientific inferences throughout their careers.

Teaching Experience