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LITE fellow's research project paper scoops award

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A LITE fellow's research project paper has been awarded a prestigious 'best in conference' award.

Lydia Bleasdale, Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence (LITE) fellow's paper 'Contextualising Resilience Amongst Law Students' was given the Stan Marsh Best Paper prize at the Association of Law Teachers Conference last month.

The paper, which is based on Lydia's LITE research project which she is carrying out with LITE fellow Sarah Humphreys, focused on resilience research being undertaken with law students at the University of Leeds.

It argued that students resilience is not an inherent quality or trait, and that challenging student behaviour and attitudes may not be due to 'low' resilience, but rather to other factors, such as prior educational experiences. notions of failure and success and parental influence.

LITE FELLOW: Award winner Lydia Bleasdale

LITE FELLOW: Award winner Lydia Bleasdale

Lydia, who is also Associate Professor in Law at the University of Leeds, says: "I'm thrilled to receive this award, particularly in such a strong field of nominees. The paper focuses on the 'Law' aspect of our research, but we hope it will be of broader interest to people working in other disciplines too.

"One of our motivations for undertaking this resilience research project was to consider how the resilience of a wide range of students might best be supported; this award hopefully helps to further publicise what we are doing, and we would be delighted to discuss the research further with anyone who is working with students."

The award is given to the paper which best meets the following the criteria of a strong educational message or finding which is based on existing, and, or developing pedagogical research; and linked to the conference themes. And in addition, during the presentation the judges looked for clear coverage and audience engagement.

LITE Director, Dr Raphael Hallett, says: "This is an accolade that Lydia should be proud of and one that rightly recognises the depth and relevance of her LITE research project."