Dr Nicola Mcwhannell
Senior Lecturer
Biography
Nicola McWhannell is a Senior Lecturer of PE and Sport Pedagogy in the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Society at the University of Chester, UK. Dr McWhannell embarked on her lecturing position at the University of Chester in 2011 following a career in PE teaching and completion of her PhD (2008, LJMU). During her time at the University of Chester, Nicola has made a significant contribution to the Department and the wider University through her dedication to high quality teaching and learning, leadership and research. Nicola is passionate about children's physical activity, fundamental movement skill development and creating positive experiences through PE and sports coaching.
Teaching and Supervision
Nicola teaches within the PE and sports pedagogy area on the BSc Sport and Exercise Sciences degree programme and BSc Physical Education degree programme and leads a number of modules across the programmes. Nicola co-founded the BSc Physical Education programme in 2014 creating specific provision for students wanting to pursue a career in PE teaching and therefore study a degree in PE. Nicola gained valuable experience from the process including programme design, steering and programme validation. Since its introduction, the programme has developed into a hugely successful course, achieving excellent NSS results year on year.
Research and Knowledge Exchange
Dr McWhannell's research is largely focussed on pediatric physical activity, body composition and bone mineral density in children and children’s fundamental movement skills. Dr McWhannell was submitted to the Department’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 submission, with four substantial papers in highly rated impact factor journals, and submitted to REF 2021 with two papers. Nicola has reviewed for several journals, including Pediatric Exercise Science, European Physical Education Review, Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise, Perceptual Motor Skills, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, and Journal of Sport Sciences. Nicola was a co-investigator for recent Active Cheshire consultancy work (external income of £20,000). Nicola completed a research review (Starting Well: Review of physical activity interventions on mental health in children) for Active Cheshire a regional multi-award winning charity that aims to engage, educate and influence the local community, as well as a wide range of organisations, stakeholders and partners locally, nationally and globally to become active. Dr Mcwhannell has previously co-supervised a PhD student (completed 2014) in the area of physiology and acted as principal supervisor for an MRes studentship at the University of Chester. Nicola has undertaken the role of internal examiner in four PhD examinations in the areas of physiology, performance analysis and physical education (2012-2019) and externally examined (oral examination) a MRes (2022).