Sahana Shankar

I am a teaching focused academic, I teach theoretical, applied and research methods topics across undergraduate and postgraduate Psychology modules. I am passionate about teaching statistics and research methods in more accessible ways to students. I am also passionate about helping students engage with their own final year research projects.

I completed my PhD at King’s College London in 2023. I spent some time teaching at King’s College London and then University of Surrey, before I moved to the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway in 2023.

I am a cognitive experimental psychologist. I am interested in the mechanisms of false belief formation, primarily in relation to health contexts. I also explore the role prior belief and affect plays in the formation of beliefs. I became interested in how and why people form these types of beliefs, in particular because of the potentially massive health impact these beliefs can have on populations. I am also interested in the influence of methodological variations on judgement and decision making.

My pedagogic research focuses on the role expectations and belief biases plays in students’ approach to learning, and how different factors may influence this relationship.

Using experimental methods, I investigate the role of belief in learning, decision-making judgement across different populations and contexts.

I currently teach on the following undergraduate courses: PS2050: Personality and Individual Differences, PS1070: How to be a Psychologist and PS3201: Final Year Project. In addition, I supervise final year projects students (PS3201), independent critical literature reviews (PS3210, and MSc Clinical Psychology projects (PS5305).

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy