New Research Grant Funds Study Into Adolescent Learning and Memory

The School of Psychology has been awarded a three-year grant to study how sleep, screen time and classroom structure affect memory formation in secondary school students.

The study will follow roughly 400 students across six partner schools, combining short cognitive tasks with the kind of data schools already collect — attendance, timetabling, and assessment results — rather than asking teachers to run anything extra.

"We are not trying to add work for teachers," the principal investigator explained. "We are trying to answer a question a lot of them already ask us informally: does the timetable itself help or hurt."

Early findings are expected in the second year of the grant, with a full report due at its close.