Laura specialises in recording and analysing interactions to better understand communication and relationships. She uses the analytic tools of conversation analysis to study interaction in a broad range of everyday and institutional settings such as family mealtimes, jury deliberations in mock rape trials, and medical encounters where she has transformed findings into highly successful evidence-based communication skills training.
In 2022, Laura was awarded a Vice Chancellor Independent Research Fellowship to lead research in youth justice, observing conversations in the Youth Justice System to identify effective verbal and non-verbal communicative practices for engaging children in child-centred discussions and decision-making. Her work seeks to better understand how a ‘Child First’ principle is operationalised in actual conversations between children and youth justice practitioners, and to create evidence-based training resources.
Laura has provided consultancy for the Ministry of Justice and Crown Prosecution Service and delivered invited talks to the Youth Justice Board and the police’s Vulnerability Knowledge Practice Programme. She was awarded runner up in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities category “Outstanding Early Career Researcher” (June 2023).
With a background in Psychology (BSc) and Health Psychology (MSc), Laura obtained her PhD at º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ in 2013, using Conversation Analysis to examine how children talk about pain at home with their families. She held post-doctoral positions at the Universities of Sheffield, Nottingham, and º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ.
Laura is a member of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) committee.
Laura studies audio and video-recordings of real-life interactions using an approach called conversation analysis. Her work reveals new insights into how people interact in a range of everyday and institutional settings.
Her primary focus is youth justice, building on º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ’s leading work on the ‘Child First’ principle. Her research aims to identify effective practices for engaging children in discussions and decision-making within the Youth Justice System, by recording and analysing actual interactions. One benefit of producing detailed, empirical understandings of how people relate to one another is the opportunity to develop evidence-based communication resources. Her project involves developing and delivering interactive communication training with, and for, practitioners and children.
Laura has published work focusing on interactions across everyday situations and medical settings across neurology, paediatrics, and palliative care. She highlights strategies for engaging patients and supporting them to describe complex sensations. She has studied how adults and children express bodily sensations and experiences like pain and seizures; how doctors can encourage patients to provide more details about their symptoms and feelings; and the ways that children contribute to healthcare encounters.
Laura has designed and delivered conversation analytic training for doctors in neurology and palliative care, focusing on effective and careful ways to invite patients to describe their sensitive experiences and perspectives. The training modules Laura designed to deal with “Asking patients about pain” form part of the RealTalk training initiative, adopted by over 400 communication trainers teaching palliative and end-of-life care communication skills across the UK and Channel Islands. You can find the training materials here: https://www.realtalktraining.co.uk/ .
Laura has led undergraduate and postgraduate modules in statistics, developmental psychology, and applied conversation analysis. She has taught on qualitative and quantitative research methods, and forensic, health, and social psychology modules.
Current Supervision
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Katie Jordin. Title: Learning To Be A Boy - How everyday conversation teaches and upholds heteronormative gender constraints to boys.
Key Publications
- Jenkins, L., Ekberg, S., Wang, N. (2024) Communication in Pediatric Healthcare: A State-of-the-Art Literature Review of Conversation-Analytic Research. Research on Language and Social Interaction 57 (1), 91-108 https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2024.2305046
- Pino, M., Jenkins, L. (2023) Inviting the patient to talk about a conversation they had with another healthcare practitioner: A way of promoting discussion about disease progression and end of life in palliative care interactions. Health Communication 39 (4), 778-792 https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2023.2185579
- Jenkins, L., Hepburn, A., Potter, J., Macdougall, C. (2023) “Are you otherwise fit and well?”: Past medical history questions in UK paediatric consultations. Patient Education and Counseling, 108104 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2023.108104
- Richardson, E., Jenkins, L., Willmott, D. (2023) Rape Myths, Jury Deliberations, and Conversation Analysis: A New Approach to an age-old Problem. Emerald Opinion & Blog https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/opinion-and-blog/rape-myths-jury-deliberations-and-conversation-analysis-a-new-approach-age-old
- Parry, R., Whittaker, B., Pino, M., Jenkins, L., Worthington, E., Faull, C. (2022) RealTalk evidence-based communication training resources: development of conversation analysis-based materials to support training in end-of-life-related health and social care conversations BMC Medical Education 22 (1), 637 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-022-03641-y
- Jenkins, L., Parry, R., Pino, M. (2021) Providing opportunities for patients to say more about their pain without overtly asking: A conversation analysis of doctors repeating patient answers in palliative care pain assessment. Applied Linguistics 42 (5), 990-1013 https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amaa062
- Ekberg, S., Parry, R., Land, V., Ekberg, K., Pino, M., Antaki, C., Jenkins, L., Whittaker, B. (2021) Communicating with patients and families about illness progression and end of life: a review of studies using direct observation of clinical practice. BMC Palliative Care 20, 1-12 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12904-021-00876-2
- Jenkins, L., Hepburn, A., MacDougall, C. (2020) How and why children instigate talk in pediatric allergy consultations: A conversation analytic account. Social Science & Medicine 266, 113291 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113291