Dr Pamela Knight

Pamela is a qualitative researcher with expertise in health and well-being in organisations, technological and service innovation for health and well-being, ageing research, linguistic discourse analysis, co-creation methodologies. She is also a practising critical care nurse.

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Background

Pamela harmonises her professional role as a nurse with her academic role as a qualitative researcher in health. She has extensive history of collaborative research, service evaluation and implementing best practice with health and social care providers in the NHS, GP, and community settings and with service users, nationally and internationally. She is highly innovative in participatory research and co-design methodologies, particularly related to technological and service innovation for the health and well-being of older people and minority ethnic groups. She has growing interest in innovative research for nurse education.

Pamela also has a background in sociolinguistic research, including linguistic discourse analysis and language variation and change. She has applied this training in the field of medical discourses, talk in organisations and cultural and migratory variation in the use of language.

Spoken Languages

• Jamaican Creole
• English

Research interests

• Health, well-being and inclusion of older people and minority groups
• Ageing research Health and well-being in organisations
• Participatory and co-creation methodologies
• Medical discourses
• Cultural and migratory language variation
• Nurse education research

Areas of research supervision

Pamela welcomes opportunities to supervise doctoral students in the following areas:

• Health and well-being and inclusion of older people and/or minority groups
• Technological innovation for the health and well-being of older people and/or minority groups
• Stress and well-being in organisations
• Medical (health) discourses

Teaching

• PhD supervision, undergraduate and postgraduate dissertation supervision.
• OSCE examinations for medical students
• Professional Doctorate summer school, research module

Qualifications

• PhD (Linguistics), University of Essex
• Master of Arts (Sociolinguistics), University of Essex
• Bachelor of Arts: (English Language and Linguistics), University of Essex
• Registered General Nurse (adult), North-East Essex Institute of Nursing Studies

Memberships, editorial boards

• PI, C-the-Signs- an innovative tool designed to improve cancer recognition and timely referral in GP practices, funded by the Academic Health Science Network and Ipswich and East Suffolk CCG, evaluation
• PI, Building Research capacity in the East of England Specialist Community Public Health Nursing workforce, (BREES), funded by Health Education England.
• Co-I, Evaluation of an outcomes-based service delivery of the Child and Families Wellbeing Service in Essex, funded by Virgin Care and Barnardo's.
• PI, New starters progressing through supernumerary, supervisory and independent status in a cardiothoracic critical care unit: an evaluation of psychological well-being and intention to leave, ARU Research and Enterprise Investment Fund. Co-I Barriers and potentials for the uptake of technology for third sector organisations in the Essex Digital Innovation Zone.
• Co-I, Silver Economy Accelerating Strategies to Grow (Seas2Grow)- collaboration to foster the development of innovative technological products for the ‘Silver Economy’ market in the 2 seas regions of the UK, France, Belgium and Netherlands, funded by Interreg2Seas, regional development fund.
• Co-I, developing emotional coping skills to promote resilience in mental health nursing students using VR technology, funded by ARU Research and Enterprise Investment Fund.

Knowledge Exchange

• Pamela works with nurse educators, nationally and internationally, and with ARU NHS partners to foster collaborative nurse education and to influence evidence based professional practice. She has developed a programme of research in her faculty which aims to better understand and improve the transition experiences and outcomes of student nurses and newly qualified staff nurses.
• She has forged extensive engagement, knowledge exchange partnerships and research collaboration with, national and international industry partners (including, small and large enterprise businesses, innovation accelerator personnel, living laboratory personnel, business incubator personnel, social enterprise businesses); public bodies, third sector organisations, Department for International Trade, and other academics, to develop evaluate and research services or products related to the Healthy Ageing sector. She has developed a valuable knowledge repository of technology that is designed to support life course and ageing needs.

Selected recent publications

McVicar, A., Pettit, A., Knight-Davidson, P., Shaw-Flach, A., (2020), Promotion of professional quality of life through reducing fears of compassion and compassion fatigue: Application of the Compassionate Mind Model to Specialist Community Public Health Nurses (Health Visiting) training. Journal of Clinical Nursing (2021), 30: 101-112

Knight-Davidson, P., McVicar, A., and Lane, P., (2020) Methods for co-creating with older adults in living laboratories: a scoping review. Health and Technology (2020) 10 997-1009.

Pettit, A., McVicar, A., Knight-Davidson, P., and Shaw-Flach, A. (2018), Releasing latent compassion through an innovative compassion curriculum for Specialist Community Public Health Nurses. Journal of Advanced Nursing (2018) Vol 75 Issue 5, 1053-106

Recent presentations and conferences

McVicar, A., and Knight-Davidson, P., Real-time evaluation of stress antecedents for students during their first adult-care practice placement and for newly qualified nurses working in critical care (2018) Sigma Theta Tau (SSTI) 4th Biennial European Conference 4th – 6th June 2018, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, https://www.phpc.cam.ac.uk/pcu/event/stti-4th-biennial-european-conference.

Knight-Davidson P., Ethical considerations relating to conducting linguistic research in the UK National Health Service (NHS): How to make studies applicable to practitioners and of benefit to participations (2017) Conducting Communication Medicine and Ethics Conference, June 26-28th 2017, Indianapolis University, Purdue University, Indianapolis, USA.

Knight, P, (2002), London Jamaican in the speech of two subjects: Sociolinguistic Symposium 14, Gent, Belgium (2002)

April 2021, Oral presentation of living lab services: UK-Basque Country Healthy Ageing workshops – IV. Healthy Ageing workshop 22nd April – Mobility: Online, organised by the Department for International Trade.

March 2018, Oral presentation of living lab services for the Seas2 grow project: Palais des Académies - Academy Palace Hertogstraat 11000 Brussel, Belgium.