Thomas Rhys Evans

Dr Thomas Rhys Evans BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD, FHEA, CPsychol

Associate Professor in Occupational Psychology

Dr Thomas Rhys Evans (Tom/He/Him) joined the School of Human Sciences in December 2020 as an Associate Professor in Occupational Psychology. Prior to this, Tom was Associate Professor and Programme Director for the Business and Organisational Psychology (BOP) Team at Coventry University.

Tom’s early research profile focussed upon a variety of themes surrounding the affective and social aspects of our working lives, leading projects on humour, emotional intelligence, feedback, and frustration. Tom’s research currently focuses upon using meta-psychology and open science practices to understand the quality of evidence within Occupational Psychology, and Psychology more broadly. Tom has a background of applying Occupational Psychology to the Fire Service context, and particularly enjoys adopting a collaborative and critical approach to addressing big societal issues.

Tom was announced the winner of the 2023 BPS Division of Occupational Psychology Excellence in Occupational Psychology – Experienced Award, in recognition of his teaching, research and policy impact.

Posts held previously

  • 2018 - 2020 Associate Professor in Occupational Psychology and Programme Director for the Business and Organisational Psychology (BOP) Team at Coventry University
  • 2017 - 2020 Senior Associate Tutor at the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning at the University of Warwick
  • 2018 - 2018 Senior Lecturer in Occupational Psychology at Coventry University
  • 2014 - 2018 Lecturer in Occupational Psychology at Coventry University.

Psychology

Responsibilities within the university
  • Associate Professor in Occupational Psychology
  • Programme Leader for the Occupational Psychology MSc
  • Module Leader for “Evidence-based Practice” and “Psychological Assessment at Work”
  • Institutional Lead for the University of Greenwich at the UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN)
  • Co-Chair of the Faculty Research Ethics Committee (FREC)
  • Practice Lead for the Institute for Lifecourse Development (ILD)
  • Lead of the Greenwich Open Research and Scholarship Hub (GOSH).

Recognition
Teaching Community
  • Co-Chair of the BPS Division of Occupational Psychology Training Committee (DOPTC)
  • External Examiner for the University of Westminster, Birkbeck, University of London, and Northumbria University
  • Former External Examiner for DeMontfort University (Dubai Campus) and Anglia Ruskin University via Arden University
  • Former External Reviewer for Occupational and Organisational Psychology MSc Programme Validation at Northumbria University
  • Former Panel Member for International Programme Validation, Northampton University
  • Former Link Tutor for the Business Psychology MSc at the Colombo Institute for Research and Psychology, Sri Lanka.
Publishing Community
  • Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Open Psychology Data
  • Associate Editor for Royal Society Open Science, Collabra: Psychology and Recommender (similar to Associate Editor) for PCI: RR
  • Editorial Board Member of Current Psychology
  • Reviewer for: Emotion Review; Personality and Individual Differences; Management Communication Quarterly; Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology; Applied Psychological Research Journal; Journal of Managerial Psychology; International Journal of Business Psychology; Royal Society Open Science; Humour: An International Journal of Humour Research; Current Psychology; Educational and Child Psychology; PLOS ONE; Computers in Human Behaviour; Management Research, The Journal of the Iberoamerican Academy of Management; Virtual Reality; Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma; The European Journal of Humour Research.
Research Community
Practitioner Community
  • Co-developer of two Situational Judgement Tests of Operational Preparedness for application in UK Fire and Rescue Services
  • Developed training and podcast content for The Engagement Coach
  • Recognised for written evidence statements to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee Inquiry on the UK Science within the UK House of Commons Reproducibility and Research Integrity Report
  • Submitted written evidence statement to the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee Inquiry on The future of news: impartiality, trust and technology.

Research / Scholarly interests

Tom’s early research profile focussed upon a variety of themes surrounding the affective and social aspects of our working lives, leading projects on humour, emotional intelligence, feedback, and frustration. Tom currently focuses on using meta-science and open scholarship practices to understand the quality of evidence within Occupational Psychology, and Psychology more broadly. Tom works with a number of industry partners and has published a book on the application of Occupational Psychology to the Fire Service and on the evidence behind practices in HR. Tom particularly enjoys adopting a collaborative and critical approach to addressing big societal issues and welcomes opportunities to collaborate with researchers, practitioners and industry partners on such goals.

Key funded projects

    • Dutch Research Council (NWO). 2024 (€49,998)
      Co-leading the development of an open-access scholarship training program. Entitled: Promoting Open Science Teaching: A Positive, Inclusive and Participatory Program for Educators (POST-Edu)
    • Leverhulme Trust. 2023-2024 (£66,892)
      I am the sole lead of a multi-disciplinary global survey on accessible feedback processes in research
    • US Department of Defence via the Center for Open Science ($5000)
      I led one of the direct replication projects, and a number of computational reproducibility project as part of the wider SCORE initiative, which was designed to assess and improve the credibility of social and behavioural science research
    • Coventry University. 2017 (£1,500) I led a team of students, colleagues, Rye Hill Prison employees, and other stakeholders, to secure funding to develop a business plan for a joint social enterprise with HMP Rye Hill. Having completed the preliminary work and market research, a sustainable and socially beneficial organisation entitled ‘Sawdust Rehab’ was created
    • West Midlands Fire Service. 2016-2017 (£100,000)
      I co-led the development and validation of a Situational Judgement Tool to assess Operational Preparedness. In addition to the GORE Research Excellence Award for driving significant changes to policy and practice, this project has led to the commercialisation of a training and development tool
    • Coventry University. May 2015 (£2,950)
      I led the development of an integrated model of affective individual differences, unifying existing personality and cognitive/intelligence frameworks with novel aspects of Emotional Intelligence, towards more theoretically appropriate applications of Emotional Intelligence for outcomes such as job performance and employability
    • West Midlands Fire Service. December 2013 (£14,400)
      In this exploratory project, I co-led the assessment of the behavioural patterns and cognitive decision-making of persons within a domestic fire scenario.

Recent publications

Article

Evans, Thomas , Kviatkovskyte, Renata, O'Regan, Susannah, Adolph, Shernay , Tasnim, Nishat , Nkagbu Chukwudi, Floriana , Wildova, Tereza , Krzan, Maja (2024), Corruption and hierarchy: a replication of studies 1c and 6 of Fath & Kay 2018. Taylor and Francis Group - Psychology Press. In: , , , . Taylor and Francis Group - Psychology Press, The Journal of General Psychology . pp. 1-18 ISSN: 0022-1309 (Print), 1940-0888 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00221309.2024.2317247) NB Item availability restricted.

Silverstein, Priya , Elman, Colin, Montoya, Amanda, McGillivray, Barbara , Pennington, Charlotte , Harrison, Chase , Steltenpohl, Crystal , Roer, Jan , Corker, Katherine , Charron, Lisa (2024), A guide for social science journal editors on easing into open science. BMC. In: , , , . BMC, Research Integrity and Peer Review, 9: 2 2058-8615 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s41073-023-00141-5).

Viadis, David , Sleegers, Willem, Van Leeuwen, Florian, DeMarree, Kenneth , Saetrevik, Bjorn , Ross, Robert , Schmidt, Kathleen , Protzko, John , Morvinski, Coby , Ghasemi, Omid (2024), A multilab replication of the induced-compliance paradigm of cognitive dissonance. SAGE Publications. In: , , , . SAGE Publications, Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 7 (1) . pp. 1-26 2515-2459 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/25152459231213375).

Pownall, Madeleine , Pennington, Charlotte R., Norris, Emma, Juanchich, Marie , Smailes, David , Russell, Sophie , Gooch, Debbie , Evans, Thomas Rhys , Persson, Sofia , Mak, Matthew H. C. (2023), Evaluating the pedagogical effectiveness of study preregistration in the undergraduate dissertation: a registered report. SAGE Publications. In: , , , . SAGE Publications, Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 6 (4) . pp. 1-21 2515-2459 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/25152459231202724).

Hall, Braeden , Schmidt, Kathleen, Wagge, Jordan, Lewis, Savannah , Weissgerber, Sophia , Kiunke, Felix , Pfuhl, Gerit , Stieger, Stefan , Tran, Ultrich , Barzykowski, Krystian (2023), Registered replication report: a large multilab cross-cultural conceptual replication of Turri, Buckwalter, & Blouw (2015). SAGE Publications. In: , , , . SAGE Publications, Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science 2515-2459 (Online) (doi: ).

Evans, Thomas and , (2023), Open scholarship and decolonisation in Higher Education. Educational Development Unit, University of Greenwich. In: , , , . Educational Development Unit, University of Greenwich, Compass: Journal of Learning and Teaching, 16 (2) . pp. 21-29 ISSN: 2044-0081 (Print), (doi: https://doi.org/10.21100/compass.v16i2.1354).

Essex, Ryan , Thompson, Trevor, Evans, Thomas, Fortune, Vanessa , Kalocsanyiova, Erika , Miller, Denise A , Markowski, Marianne , Elliott, Helen (2023), Ethical climate in healthcare: a systematic review and meta-analysis. SAGE. In: , , , . SAGE, Nursing Ethics ISSN: 0969-7330 (Print), 1477-0989 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/09697330231177419).

Topor, Marta , Pickering, Jade S, Mendes, Ana Barbosa, Bishop, Dorothy V M , Büttner, Fionn , Elsherif, Mahmoud M , Evans, Thomas R , Henderson, Emma L , Kalandadze, Tamara , Nitschke, Faye T (2023), An integrative framework for planning and conducting Non-Intervention, Reproducible, and Open Systematic Reviews (NIRO-SR). LNU Open (Linnaeus University - Open Journal Systems - Public Knowledge Project). In: , , , . LNU Open (Linnaeus University - Open Journal Systems - Public Knowledge Project), Meta-Psychology, 7: MP.2021.2840 ISSN: 2003-2714 (Print), (doi: https://doi.org/10.15626/MP.2021.2840).

Korbmacher, Max , Azevedo, Flavio, Pennington, Charlotte, Hartmann, Helena , Pownall, Madeleine , Schmidt, Kathleen , Elsherif, Mahmoud , Breznau, Nate , Robertson, Olly , Kalandadze, Tamara (2023), The replication crisis has led to positive structural, procedural, and community changes. Springer Nature. In: , , , . Springer Nature, Communications Psychology 2731-9121 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.31222/osf.io/r6cvx).

Pownall, Madeleine , Azevedo, Flavio, König, Laura, Slack, Hannah , Evans, Thomas , Flack, Zoe , Grinschgl, Sandra , Elsherif, Mahmoud M. , Gilligan-Lee, Katie A. , de Oliveira, Catia M F. (2023), Teaching open and reproducible scholarship: a critical review of the evidence base for current pedagogical methods and their outcomes. The Royal Society. In: , , , . The Royal Society, Royal Society Open Science, 10: 221255 (5) 2054-5703 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.221255).

Evans, Thomas , Burns, Calvin, Essex, Ryan, Finnerty, Gina , Hatton, Ella , Clements, Andrew , Breau, Genevieve Marie , Quinn, Francis , Elliott, Helen , Smith, Lorraine (2023), A systematic scoping review on the evidence behind debriefing practices for the well-being/emotional outcomes of healthcare workers. Frontiers Media. In: , , , . Frontiers Media, Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14: 1078797 . pp. 1-10 1664-0640 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1078797).

Evans, Thomas , Burns, Calvin, Essex, Ryan, Finnerty, Gina , Hatton, Ella , Clements, Andrew , Breau, Genevieve Marie , Quinn, Francis , Elliott, Helen , Smith, Lorraine D. (2023), A systematic scoping review on the evidence behind debriefing practices for the wellbeing/emotional outcomes of healthcare workers. Frontiers Media. In: , , , . Frontiers Media, Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14: 1078797 . pp. 1-10 1664-0640 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1078797).

Kekecs, Zoltan , Palfi, Bence, Szaszi, Baranabas, Szecsi, Peter , Zrubka, Mark , Kovacs, Marton , Bakos, Bence , Cousineau, Denis , Tressoldi, Patrizio , Schmidt, Kathleen (2023), Raising the value of research studies in psychological science by increasing the credibility of research reports: the transparent Psi project. The Royal Society - Royal Society of Chemistry. In: , , , . The Royal Society - Royal Society of Chemistry, Royal Society Open Science, 10: 191375 (2) 2054-5703 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191375).

Essex, Ryan , Burns, Calvin, Evans, Thomas, Hudson, Georgina , Parsons, Austin , Weldon, Sharon Marie (2022), A last resort? A scoping review of patient and healthcare worker attitudes toward strike action. Wiley. In: , , , . Wiley, Nursing Inquiry, 30: e12535 (2) . pp. 1-10 ISSN: 1320-7881 (Print), 1440-1800 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/nin.12535).

Haber, Noah , Wieten, Sarah, Rohrer, Julia, Arah, Onyebuchi , Tennant, Peter , Stuart, Elizabeth , Murray, Eleanor , Pilleron, Sophie , Lam, Sze , Riederer, Emily (2022), Causal and associational language in observational health research: a systematic evaluation. Oxford University Press. In: , , , . Oxford University Press, American Journal of Epidemiology, 191: kwac137 (12) (1st) . pp. 2084-2097 ISSN: 0002-9262 (Print), 1476-6256 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwac137).

Bago, Bence , Kovacs, Marton, Protzko, John, Nagy, Tamas , Kekecs, Zoltan , Palfi, Bence , Adamkovic, Matus , Adamus, Sylwia , Albalooshi, Sumaya , Albayrak-Aydemir, Nihan (2022), Situational factors shape moral judgements in the trolley dilemma in eastern, southern and western countries in a culturally diverse sample. Nature Research. In: , , , . Nature Research, Nature Human Behaviour, 6 (6) . pp. 880-895 2397-3374 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01319-5).

Evans, Thomas Rhys , Pownall, Madeleine, Collins, Elizabeth, Henderson, Emma L. , Pickering, Jade S. , O'Mahony, Aoife , Zaneva, Mirela , Jaquiery, Matthew , Dumbalska, Tsvetomira (2022), A network of change: united action on research integrity. Biomed Central. In: , , , . Biomed Central, BMC Research Notes, 15: 141 1756-0500 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-022-06026-y).

Azevedo, Flávio , Liu, Meng, Pennington, Charlotte R., Madeleine, Pownall , Evans, Thomas Rhys , Parsons, Sam , Elsherif, Mahmoud Medhat , Micheli, Leticia , Westwood, Samuel J. , Framework for Open Reproducible Research Training (FORRT) (2022), Towards a culture of open scholarship: the role of pedagogical communities. Biomed Central. In: , , , . Biomed Central, BMC Research Notes, 15: 75 1756-0500 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-022-05944-1).

Parsons, Sam , Flavio, Azevedo, Elsherif, Mahmoud, Guay, Samuel , Shahim, Owen , Govaart, Gisela , Norris, Emma , O'Mahony, Aoife , Parker, Adam , Todorovic, Ana (2022), A community-sourced glossary of open scholarship terms. Nature Research. In: , , , . Nature Research, Nature Human Behaviour, 6 (3) . pp. 312-318 2397-3374 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01269-4).

Evans, Thomas and , (2022), Editorial: Developments in Open Data norms. Ubiquity Press. In: , , , . Ubiquity Press, Journal of Open Psychology Data, 10: 3 (1) 2050-9863 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.5334/jopd.60).

Evans, Thomas Rhys , Roskam, Isabelle, Stinglhamber, Florence, Mikolajczak, Moïra (2022), Burnout across boundaries: can parental burnout directly or indirectly influence work outcomes?. Springer. In: , , , . Springer, Current Psychology, 42 . pp. 14065-14075 ISSN: 1046-1310 (Print), 1936-4733 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02687-3).

Evans, Thomas Rhys , Branney, Peter, Clements, Andrew, Hatton, Ella (2021), Improving evidence-based practice through preregistration of applied research: barriers and recommendations. Taylor and Francis. In: , , , . Taylor and Francis, Accountability in Research: Policies and Quality Assurance, 30 (2) . pp. 88-108 ISSN: 0898-9621 (Print), 1545-5815 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2021.1969233).

Aczel, Balazs , Kovacs, Marton, Bognar, Miklos, Palfi, Bence , Hartanto, Andree , Onie, Sandersan , Tiong, Lucas E. , Evans, Thomas Rhys (2021), Is there evidence for cross-domain congruency sequence effect? A replication of Kan et al. (2013). The Royal Society. In: , , , . The Royal Society, Royal Society Open Science, 8: 191353 (3) 2054-5703 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191353).

Monograph

Azevedo, Flávio , Liu, Meng, Pennington, Charlotte, Pownall, Madeleine , Evans, Thomas , Parsons, Sam , Elsherif, Mahmoud , Micheli, Leticia , Moreau, David , (FORRT Community), FORRT (2021), Towards a culture of open scholarship: the role of pedagogical communities. UK Parliament. In: , , , . UK Parliament, UK (1st) (doi: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/39751/pdf/).

Evans, Thomas , Pownall, Madeleine, Collins, Elizabeth, Henderson, Emma , Pickering, Jade , O'Mahony, Aoife , Zaneva, Mirela , Jaquiery, Matthew , Dumbalska, Tsvetomira (2021), A network of change: three priorities requiring united action on research integrity. UK Parliament. In: , , , . UK Parliament, UK (1st) (doi: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/39078/pdf/).

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