Yvonne Skipper

My broad research interests are in the area of social influences on learning. I am interested in how children and adults respond to different forms of feedback from teachers, for example person feedback, which focuses on traits (e.g. “You’re really good at this”) compared to process feedback, which focuses on effort and methods (e.g. “You must have tried really hard”). As well as investigating responses to praise, criticism and encouragement I am also interested in teachers’ feedback delivery and their understanding of feedback. Further to this I have also been conducting research examining how young people choose which subjects to study and why girls are less likely to choose science subjects than boys.

A second strand of my research examines children’s social skills. I am interested in how social groups form in the classroom and also how children collaborate to learn together.

I am also working on a collaborative writing project TooManyCooks where young people work collaboratively to write a novel in a week.