Dr Margaret Cousins
Senior Lecturer
Margaret is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology. She has a particular interest in Learning and Teaching issues. Her core teaching areas are in cognitive psychology and research methods, and her specialist area is neurodevelopmental disorders.
Margaret joined the department in 2006 from a previous post at the University of Central Lancashire. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and an Associate Fellow and Chartered member of the British Psychological Society (Division of Teachers and Researchers).
Margaret teaches on a range of modules and is module leader for PS6011 Understanding Developmental Disorders. She supervises undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations as well as post-graduate research students.
Research interests include Developmental Coordination Disorder, and more generally, visuo-motor ability, together with other neurodevelopmental conditions. Margaret is also interested in music psychology and recently supervised the PhD work of Dr Lisa Thorpe who was looking at implicit musical memory in ageing individuals. She also has interests in pedagogic research relating to student achievement and success.
Thorpe, L., Cousins, M., & Bramwell, R. (2019). Implicit knowledge and memory for musical stimuli in musicians and non-musicians. Psychology of Music. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735619833456
Smyth, M.M. & Cousins, M. (2005). Developmental Coordination Disorder. In B. Hopkin (Ed.). The Cambridge encyclopedia of child development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cousins, M. & Smyth, M.M. (2004). Progression and development in DCD. In D. Sugden & M. Chambers (Eds.). Children with developmental coordination disorder. London: Whurr.
Cousins, M. & Smyth, M.M. (2003). Developmental coordination impairments in adulthood. Human Movement Science, 22, (4-5), 433-459.
Margaret initially followed a career as a musician after gaining a BMus degree from Royal Holloway University and diplomas in singing and instrumental playing from various music academies. She followed this by a BSc in psychology subjects from the Open University, and then an MSc in Psychological Research Methods and a PhD from the University of Lancaster, where she carried out research on adults with movement coordination impairments. She has completed Postgraduate Certificates in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education and in Research Student Supervision.