Network staff
Professor Peter D. Ashworth
Professor of educational research, BSc, PhD, FBPsS, CPsychol.
Phone 0114 225 2561
E-mail p.d.ashworth@shu.ac.uk
Peter Ashworth is head of the Faculty of Development and Society Graduate School.
He graduated with a first in psychology from the then University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology in 1971. He gained a PhD from the University of Lancaster in 1973 with a thesis on the personal changes which students undergo in the process of teacher training. He was elected a fellow of the British Psychological Society in 1988.
Throughout his professional life, a special concern has been the promotion of 'human science' - studies of people as moral agents rather than as individuals whose actions can be modelled as the lawful outcome of causal variables. Professor Ashworth has been especially active in the development of techniques based on existential-phenomenological thinking. He chaired the 18th International Human Science Research Conference in 1999.
He is a member of the Editorial Boards of Teaching in Higher Education, the Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, Qualitative Research in Psychology and the International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being. Since 2001 he has held 14 External Examinerships for PhD and EdD degrees.
Recent recognition
2006 - keynote speaker. 'Seeing oneself as a carer in the activity of caring.' 4th Nordic Interdisciplinary Conference on Qualitative Methods in the Service of Health, Växjö University, Sweden.
2005-present - honorary lecturer, School of Education, University of Sheffield
2005-2006 - associate director of the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning - Learner Autonomy (undertaking a project on the development of the BSc Psychology module research work to enable in-depth student reflection)
2005 - University Learning, Teaching and Assessment Fellowship
2003 - keynote speaker. 'Developing useable pedagogic research skills.' 11th Improving Student Learning Symposium.
2002 - keynote speaker. 'Phenomenology of the lifeworld and social psychology.' Annual Conference of the Social Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society.
Recent research publications
K Greasley and P D Ashworth (forthcoming, 2007) The phenomenology of 'approach to studying': The university student's studies within the lifeworld. British Educational Research Journal.
L Finlay, N King, P D Ashworth, J A Smith, D Langdridge, and T Butt (forthcoming 2007) 'What Can I Trust?' A polyvocal, phenomenological analysis of the psychology of mistrust. Qualitative Research in Psychology.
P D Ashworth and K Greasley (2007, forthcoming) Approches to studying: The student's experience within the lifeworld, in C Rust (Ed) Improving Student Learning through Assessment. (Proceedings of the 13th Improving Student Learning Symposium.) Oxford, Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development.
K A Gerrish, P D Ashworth, A. Lacey, J Bailey, J Cooke, S Kendall, and E McNeilly (2007) Factors influencing the development of evidence-based practice: a research tool. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 57, (3) 328-338.
P D Ashworth (2006) Seeing oneself as a carer in the activity of caring. Attending to the lifeworld of the person with Alzheimer's disease. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Health and Well-being, 1, (4) 212-225.
P D Ashworth and Man Cheung Chung (Eds, 2006) Phenomenology and Psychological Science: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives. New York, Springer
Chung, M.C. and Ashworth, P D (2006) The meeting of phenomenology and psychology. In P D Ashworth and Man Cheung Chung (Eds, 2006) Phenomenology and Psychological Science: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives. New York, Springer, pp 1-9.
Ashworth, P.D. (2006) Introduction to the place of phenomenological thinking in the history of psychology. In P D Ashworth and Man Cheung Chung (Eds, 2006) Phenomenology and Psychological Science: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives. New York, Springer, pp 11-44.
Ashworth, P.D. and Chung, M.C. (2006) Conclusion: Phenomenology and psychological science. In P D Ashworth and Man Cheung Chung (Eds, 2006) Phenomenology and Psychological Science: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives. New York, Springer, pp 197-205.
P D Ashworth (2005) Who are 'we'? Who are 'you'? Who are 'they'? Issues of role and identity in academic development. In E. Elvidge (ed.) Exploring Academic Development in Higher Education: Issues of engagement. Cambridge, Jill Rogers Associates pp71-81 (with Gunnar Handal, University of Oslo; Catherine Hole, University of Bath; Ray Land, Coventry University; Margaret Orr, University of the Witwatersrand, and Alison Phipps, University of Glasgow) pp 71-82.
R Dhimar and P D Ashworth (2005) Diversity and the practicalities of assessment, in C Rust (Ed) Student Diversity. (Proceedings of the 12th Improving Student Learning Symposium.) Oxford, Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development, pp 125-136. [Revised version of the above in M Farrer and M Todd (Eds. 2006) Teaching 'Race' in Social Sciences: New contexts, new approaches. Birmingham, Sociology, Anthropology, Politics, The Higher Education Academy Subject Network, pp 53-71.]
P.D.Ashworth (2004) Learning as the transformation of what is already known. Teaching in Higher Education, 9, (2) 147-158
Sue Clegg and P D Ashworth (2004) Contested Practices: learning outcomes and disciplinary understandings. In J Satterthwaite, E Atkinson and W Martin (Ed.) The Disciplining of Education: New languages of power and resistance. Stoke-on-Trent, Trentham pp 53-68.
P.D.Ashworth (2004) Developing useable pedagogic research skills, in C Rust (Ed) Theory, Research and Scholarship. (Proceedings of the 11th Improving Student Learning Symposium.) Oxford, Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development, pp18-33.
P D Ashworth (2003) The origins of qualitative psychology. In J.A.Smith (eds.) Qualitative Psychology: A practical guide to research methods. London, Sage pp 4-24 [Second Edition forthcoming, 2007; Chinese edition, 2007]
P D Ashworth (2003) Qualitative research methods in higher education development. In R. Macdonald and H. Eggins (eds.) The Scholarship of Academic Development. Buckingham, SRHE and Open University Press pp 93-103
P D Ashworth (2003) Why merely policing plagiarism is not the answer. In C. Rust (ed.) Improving Student Learning: Ten Years On (Proceedings of the 10th Improving Student Learning Symposium). Oxford, Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development pp 374-383.
P D Ashworth (2003) The representation of the openness of consciousness in current psychological theory. Existential Analysis, 14, (1) 98 - 111
P D Ashworth (2003) The phenomenology of the lifeworld and social psychology. Social Psychological Review, 5, (1) 18-34
M McManus, K Gerrish and P Ashworth (2003) Creating what sort of professional? Master's level nurse education as a professionalising strategy. Nursing Inquiry, 10, 103-112
P D Ashworth (Guest Editor, 2003) Contingencies of the lifeworld: Phenomenological psychology from Sheffield, England. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 34 (2)
P D Ashworth (2003) An approach to phenomenological psychology: the primacy of the lifeworld. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 34, (2) 145-156
Ann Ashworth and P D Ashworth (2003) The lifeworld as phenomenon and as research heuristic, exemplified by a study of the lifeworld of a person suffering Alzheimer's disease. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 34, (2) 179-205
P.D. Ashworth, M. Freewood and R. Macdonald (2003) The student lifeworld and the meaning of plagiarism. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 34 (2) 257-278
P D Ashworth (2002) Some implicit issues of educational philosophy involved in learning through web resources. In C. Rust (ed.) Improving Student Learning: Improving Student Learning using Information Technology (Proceedings of the 9th Improving Student Learning Symposium). Oxford, Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development pp 57-66
P D Ashworth, K Gerrish and M McManus (2001) Whither nursing? Discourses underlying the attribution of Master's level performance in nursing. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 34, 621-628.
