PhD Psychology: Decolonising the Psychology Research Methods Curriculum

Recent movements such as #RhodesMustFall, #LiberateMyDegree and 'why is my curriculum white?' have urged collective action to liberate knowledge from its colonial legacy. Universities should be held accountable for under-representing the global majority through a lopsided, mono-culturist and US-Eurocentric curriculum (Bird & Pitman, 2019). The colonised curriculum deprives learners from being critically reflexive and contextually sensitive to the scholarship they use and disseminate (Castell et al., 2018). Additionally, it creates an academy that considers western research and researchers as primary generators of reliable knowledge, while disregarding their non-western equivalents (Barnes & Siswana, 2018; Reidpath & Allotey, 2019).

Predominately US-Eurocentric psychological knowledge is guilty of ignoring injustices in the name of universalistic notions and scientific neutrality (Barnes, 2018). Within psychology, selective emphasis on western knowledge makes psychological knowledge unrepresentative of the global context (Adams et al., 2015). Professional bodies such as the British Psychological Association and the American Psychological Association, and universities have attempted to decolonise curriculum by diversifying reading lists to include multiple voices (BPS, 2020; Bronstein & Quina, 2003). However, such efforts have little effect when non-western scholarship (barring a few) lacks global visibility and acceptance, and when negative perceptions for non-western research keeps it outside the purview of educators and learners (Barnes & Siswana, 2018; Castell et al., 2018; Mitchell, 2020; Phiri, 2018). This challenge could plausibly be global; compelling non-western scholars to catch-up with the west by cloning, imitating and conforming; and without critically reflecting on the social, cultural and historical context of the mainstream knowledge they use (Helland & Lindgren, 2016). Present strategies have had limited success because they fail comprehensive evaluation of factors (like visibility, bias issues) obstructing meaningful, well-rounded decolonisation.

Research methods (RM) form the backbone of psychology curricula and are most effectively taught using examples. Examples provide a 'hook' to engage students, who consequently learn something of interest about psychology whilst also learning about psychological RM. However, colonised curricula prevent learners from understanding why dominant methodologies might be locally incompatible since indigenous alternatives do not find place in mainstream RM curricula (Barnes, 2018; Papoutsaki, 2007). Therefore, empowering educators and learners with tools to appreciate diversity in psychology RM (e.g., by being able to search and locate an example of a non-significant chi-square test in social psychology based on open data collected and published in a non-western country), would offer alternate ways of thinking and iterate toward a decolonised curriculum.

Genuine decolonising efforts requires strategies that go beyond mere diversification of reading lists. The aim of this projects is to explore current barriers and devise potential solutions to decolonising the RM curriculum. Through exploratory sequential mixed methods research, the proposed project aims to (a) advance decolonisation efforts by identifying barriers preventing psychology RM from decolonising (b) investigate ways to address the global visibility need for non-western research, and (c) develop an evidence-based strategy to support broader, discipline-wide global efforts to decolonise psychology RM curriculum in the UK. This research would contribute toward the ethical and educational priority of UK universities to provide comprehensive, holistic and global education.