Volunteer

Description

The UL Department of Psychology is issuing a call for student research internships as part of the annual Voluntary Internship Programme in Research (VIP-R). VIP-R offers undergraduate and taught postgraduate students in psychology an opportunity to work closely with a member of staff and/or their lab members on a research project, gaining deeper insight into the theoretical, conceptual, and practical aspects of the research process, overall assisting the student in the culmination of broad-ranging, transferrable skills. This is a great opportunity to gain real-life, practical research skills to enhance your CV and application for future taught/research postgraduate programmes.

What is involved?

Typically, it requires a 5-hour/week commitment for 9 months. Within this, the supervisor and student can flexibly define the parameters of the work relationship on the research project to include relevant research activities such as attendance at lab meetings, etc. At the end of the programme, the student will receive a certificate of participation and can ask to list their supervisor as a referee. 

What research internships are available as part of VIP-R?

The attached poster (and shown below) lists the research projects and associated supervisors participating in the current VIP-R call. The supporting documentation provides further information on each project, the roles/responsibilities of the intern, and the desired criteria for an intern, where relevant.

I would like to take part in VIP-R, what now?

E-mail the project supervisor to express your interest. Alongside this, please consider including a few sentences about yourself, such as your year group, course, relevant experience (CV), research interests, and why you would like to work with the project supervisor.

Please note: Internship places are limited, and it may not be possible to accommodate all expressions of interest that are received.

Is training provided?:Yes

Tasks that the volunteer(s) will be expected to undertake:

Voluntary Internship Programme in Research (VIP-R)

Psychology

Academic Year 25/26

SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION

Imposter Phenomenon, Career Anxiety, and Career Development Concerns

Project: Exploring imposter phenomenon, career anxiety, and career development concerns using literature searches and data collection methods.

Supervisor: Dr Emmanuel Affum-Osei (Emmanuel.AffumOsei@ul.ie)

Roles/Responsibilities of Intern: The intern will assist with the following:

• Conducting literature reviews on relevant concepts of the study
• Collecting data using Qualtrics
• Exploring the dataset to establish basic relationships among variables

Desired Criteria:

• Familiarity with conducting literature reviews using relevant databases
• Comfort with recruiting participants for the project
• Familiarity with quantitative research designs
• Experience using Qualtrics for data collection

Depressive Symptom Heterogeneity and Psychosocial Functioning

Project: A series of evidence synthesis projects and analyses across large-scale datasets relevant to depression heterogeneity and the impact on one’s ability to engage with day-to-day environmental or social tasks (e.g., attend to work, relationships).

Supervisor: Dr Elayne Ahern (Elayne.Ahern@ul.ie)

Roles/Responsibilities of Intern: Including, but not limited to:

• Screening of relevant study records as part of systematic review work in accordance with defined study eligibility criteria, firstly, at title/abstract level and, secondly, at the full-text level (incl. sourcing full-text articles of relevant records) using Covidence software. Training will be provided
• Data extraction/quality assessment for included studies in the systematic review using template provided by the Project Supervisor
• Assist the generation of summary tables for the included studies in the systematic review
• Lab activities: attend lab group meetings and assist other ongoing projects, which may include recruitment and data collection.

Desired Criteria:

• Familiarity with systematic review methodology and quantitative research designs (e.g., randomised controlled trials, observational studies)
• Interest and motivation to engage in a new research methodology (systematic review)
• Organisational skills, such as the effective documentation of processes during record screening; reliable and works well with others.
• Interest in pursuing research at postgraduate/doctoral level

Heart and Mind: Psychological Well-Being and Physical Health

Projects: A range of projects examining the predictors of psychological well-being and physical health. For the Autumn semester there will be a focus on two quantitative studies (depression and cardiovascular disease, and public health messaging effectiveness to change attitudes relating to mental health). You will gain skills during this internship in the use of secondary datasets (e.g., identifying variables from datasets, searching datasets for variables) and collecting primary data (most likely using online survey software). Full training and support will be provided.

Supervisor: Dr Siobhán Griffin (Siobhan.Griffin@ul.ie)

Roles/Responsibilities of Intern:

• Exploring secondary datasets to search for key variables
• Running experimental studies on online survey platforms, e.g., Qualtrics (training provided)
• Eagerness to learn and build ones CV
• Reviewing relevant literature

Desired Criteria:

• For this role, the candidate will need to have excellent attention to detail
• Willingness to learn new skills and develop existing skills
• Knowledge of experimental design
• Organisational skills
• Excellent familiarity with using a laptop/IT, in terms of conducting internet searches, literature searches, etc.
• Comfortable with (or happy to be supported in) searching a database on SPSS/excel to see what variables are in the dataset

Research on People and Games Lab (Multiple Projects)

Projects: (1) Gamified vs traditional learning: Examining the efficacy of online gamification for learning; (2) Student & staff perceptions of game-based learning: An online survey; (3) Pre-game mood and its influence on player experience: A psychophysiological study; and (4) “And that's why we play!” Perceived effects of table-top role-playing games on students' engagement, learning and performance: A qualitative study.

Supervisor(s): Dr David D. Hayes (David.D.Hayes@ul.ie), Dr Lorena Arnal (Lorena.Arnal@ul.ie)

Roles/Responsibilities of Intern:

The intern will join our Lab and support us in the delivery of one or more of our ongoing projects and in the running of the Lab. Tasks may involve any or all of the following:

• Reviewing literature relevant to the study at hand
• Creating study materials
• Collecting data
• Analysing data (with support)
• Participating in meetings of the RPG Lab
• Managing/contributing to the RPG Lab’s social media & website

Desired Criteria:

• Interest in the subject areas covered by the Lab (i.e., interest in the intersection of psychology and games).
• Being comfortable to interact with participants and other Lab members face-to-face in the lab as well as online.
• Willingness and motivation to engage with and learn about research tools, methods, software, etc. that the intern has little or no prior experience with.

Social Cognition Lab at UL (SOCO-UL [“so cool”] Lab: On the Self, Emotions, Meaning in Life

Projects: Involve the Self, Emotions & Meaning in Life, Heroism, & Person Perception

Supervisor: Professor Eric R. Igou (Eric.Igou@ul.ie)

Roles/Responsibilities of Intern:

• Reviewing literature relevant to the study at hand
• Creating study materials
• Collecting data
• Analyzing data (with support)
• Participating in meetings of the SOCOUL Lab
• Maintaining the website of the SOCOUL Lab

Desired Criteria:

• Interest in the subject areas above: Wanting to know more about how the human mind works and why people behave the way they do as a function of the social context (social psychology & social cognition)
• Willingness to explore and engage in discussions about research in lab settings (SOCOUL Lab: https://socoullab.wordpress.com)
• Willingness to learn statistical analyses using SPSS and/or R
• Interest in an academic career (PhD, perhaps more)

Projects (cont’d):

• Breaking the Dark Triad & Tetrad: Are scores of narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism stable? Can self-perceptions of these qualities change as a function of contextual variation? How can contextual feature “break” (increase or reduce) such scores?
• Person Perception: People make inferences about others as a function of cues (e.g., middle initials, displayed eccentricity; see Van Tilburg & Igou, 2014a, 2014b). What leads to the perception that other people are boring, and how do people respond to that? (see also: Van Tilburg, Igou, & Panjwani, 2022, on “Boring People” perceptions; https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01461672221079104).
• Emotions & Existentialism: I am interested in existential connotations of emotions such as boredom and disillusionment: They convey that either the situation or life in general is less meaningful than desired. I then examine how people manage such experiences. Example: Van Tilburg & Igou (2017) (https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-48139-001).
• Heroism & Heroism Motivation: What affects whether or not people are motivated to engage in heroic acts? I am particularly interested in emotions as a facilitator of heroism motivation. Example: Igou et al., (2018) (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02375/full)

My main collaborators are:

• Wijnand van Tilburg; Senior Lecturer at the University of Essex; first graduating PhD student in Psychology at UL; winner of the 33rd Ig Nobel Prize (2023) for Education
• Elaine Kinsella: Associate Professor at UL
• Andrew Moynihan: Associate Professor at UL
• Muireann O’Dea: Post-doc at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau
• Aoife Whiston: Assistant Professor at UL
• Herbert Bless: Mentor and Professor at the University of Mannhein

Trust & Machiavellianism

Project: Trust, Strangers, Machiavellism | experimental research | meta-analysis

Supervisor: Dr Ann-Christin Posten (Ann-Christin.Posten@ul.ie)

Roles/Responsibilities of Intern:

• The intern will join an existing project and work with the research team to assist the following:
• Systematic meta-analysis on literature on trust in strangers
• Engage in programming experiments with Qualtrics
• Running experimental studies as experimenter in the lab or online

Desired Criteria:

• Familiarity with quantitative research designs
• Understanding of systematic review methodology and meta-analysis
• Familiarity with Qualtrics or similar programmes or openness to engage with them
• Being comfortable to interact with participants face-to-face in the lab as well as online

Evidence Synthesis in Clinical Psychology

Project: A series of evidence synthesis projects relevant to clinical populations and/or research designs in clinical psychology (e.g., single case studies)

Supervisor(s): Dr Elaine Rogers (Elaine.M.Rogers@ul.ie), Dr Elayne Ahern (Elayne.Ahern@ul.ie)

Roles/Responsibilities of Intern:

The intern will join an existing project(s) and work with the research team to assist the following:

• Screening of relevant study records in accordance with defined study eligibility criteria, firstly, at title/abstract level and, secondly, at the full-text level (incl. sourcing full-text articles of relevant records) using Covidence software. Training will be provided
• Data extraction/quality assessment for included studies using template provided by the Project Supervisor
• Assist the generation of summary tables for the included studies

Desired Criteria:

• Familiarity with systematic review methodology and research designs (e.g., observational studies, single case studies)
• Interest and motivation to engage in a new research methodology (systematic review)
• Organisational skills, such as the effective documentation of processes during record screening

Persuasion Styles and Polarization

Project: In collaboration with an Iranian Postdoctoral researcher, I am investigating how different persuasion strategies can help reduce polarization by building bridges between opposing groups (e.g., conservatives vs. liberals in the USA). The idea is to explore how individuals with different psychological parameters (e.g., personality traits, empathy, flexibility, etc.) tend to adopt specific persuasion styles (e.g., Rational Analyst, Silent Dissenter, etc), and how these styles may contribute to reducing division and fostering constructive dialogue.

Supervisor: Dr Jenny Roth (Jenny.Roth@ul.ie)

Roles/Responsibilities of Intern:

• Literature search, identification of scales to assess individual differences, set up of study in Qualtrics, data collection, contribution of critical thought

Desired Criteria:

• Reliable, conscientious, interested in research and this specific topic, willing to collaborate with international postdoc.

Minimum time commitment per week:
Flexible/Varies

Additional screening required for this role::
To express your interest, please contact the project supervisor directly. For any other queries related to VIP-R please feel free to contact Dr Elayne Ahern, elayne.ahern@ul.ie

Sustainable Development Goal:

Hei:
UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK