MISS CLAIRE ROBERTSON

Biography

I received my BSc (Hons) Psychology (1st) from Abertay University in 2021; my honours project focus was laterality and handedness research. I gained my MSc Health Psychology (Merit) from the University of St Andrews in 2022, where my research interests and project focused on psycho-oncology and the evaluation of interventions. I started my PhD programme at the University of Aberdeen in 2022. My PhD project examines how public health information can be made more accessible and engaging through the medium of health comics. I am supervised by Professor Ben Tatler, Professor Chris Murray (University of Dundee) and Dr Clare Kirtley.  ​

My research interests are primarily centred around health comics and the development of effective public health communication strategies. I am particularly passionate about the potential of health comics to engage diverse audiences and communicate complex health information in a visually appealing and accessible manner.

Please feel free to contact me about my research or any potential collaboration opportunities. 

Prizes and Awards

Awarded 1st place for the Interdisciplinary Poster Showcase at the Interdisciplinary Open Sessions Day 2023, University of Aberdeen.

Research Overview

I am passionate about making health information resources more accessible and engaging for all needs and abilities within the population with the aim of improving public health outcomes.

I am interested in innovative strategies and tools to enhance the clarity and appeal of health messaging - particularly health comic research. Bridging the gap between health professionals and the public will help empower individuals with the knowledge they need to make informed health decisions.

Current Research

Comics & Health: Informing and Evaluating the Design of Public Health Information Comics

Communicating complex health information to the public has a variety of challenges due to the range of needs and abilities within the population. Health communication must engage the target audience to promote positive health outcomes through interacting with the material. Comics are an engaging, accessible medium in which complex health information can be communicated to all ages and literacy levels through words, images, and storytelling. This interdisciplinary project will examine the understanding of, engagement with, and attitudes towards health messages in comics across three main themes. Firstly, comic design - how readers engage with public health comics and how comic design choices shape engagement, knowledge transfer and attitude change. Secondly, the target audience - how varying the comic design impacts readers of different backgrounds. Finally, the delivery medium - how engagement, knowledge transfer and attitude change depending on the presentation of the information (a health comic vs an information leaflet). Once presented with the health comic, the reader's eye movements will be recorded to explore how they interact with and navigate through panels, enabling visual markers of engagement to be identified. The eye-movement data will be linked to questionnaire responses to identify objective markers of visual engagement, which can help indicate changes in reader knowledge and attitude. The findings of this project will help advance comic theory and contribute to multi-modal perception and memory research within psychology. Furthermore, this research will allow health comics to be objectively assessed regarding their effectiveness and further provide comprehensive recommendations for effective health comic creation.

Past Research

An Evaluation of the mini-AFTERc Intervention: The Application of the Fidelity of Implementation (FOI) Tool - MSc Project

The study of fidelity of implementation (FOI) in fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) interventions is a novel, under-researched area which can help improve the development of interventions to promote desired patient outcomes (Carroll et al., 2007). This research aimed to measure FOI in the Mini-AFTERc pilot intervention (McHale et al., 2020) – developed to assist breast cancer patients with FCR management to explore how fidelity impacts FCR and key patient outcomes. The FOI tool (Brandt et al., 2020) was applied to 13 telephone audio recordings obtained from the Mini-AFTERc pilot to allow the interaction between breast care nurses (BCNs) and patients to be assessed and scored. Firstly, it was hypothesised that a larger proportion of BCNs would achieve high FOI than low. It was also predicted that there would be an association between FOI percentage and FCR scores post-intervention. Finally, it was hypothesised that there would be an association between FOI percentage and other key variables related to FCR, such as age and anxiety follow-up scores. Two of the hypotheses were partially supported, the low/high dispersion of fidelity scores and the relationship between FOI and anxiety – no other significant findings were found. The results of this research were exploratory. It was concluded that the importance of flexibility, delivery approach and avoidance were key factors in the existing literature that aid in the justification of why fidelity differed across the sample.

Teaching Responsibilities

I have taken tutorial/workshop sessions for the modules PS1009 (Introductory Psychology I: Concepts and Theory) and PS1509 (Introductory Psychology II: Concepts and Theory) as a Demonstrator in Psychology.

I also have experience in marking formative and summative assessments for Level 1 and Level 2 Psychology students. 

Non-course Teaching Responsibilities

As a Student Support Assistant, I am trained as a note-taker, reader, scribe and invigilator within the School of Psychology, School of Biological Sciences and Medicine, Medical Sciences & Nutrition.