SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES – DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
VOLUNTARY RESEARCH ASSISTANT SCHEME
The Voluntary Research Assistant Scheme (VRAs) is an experience offered to all UG and PG students enrolled in a Psychology programme at Heriot Watt University.
Aims
- Increase your employability profile by including the scheme in your CV
- Develop further your transferable skills in terms of data handling and reports preparation
- Get greater knowledge of a research environment, including team work, and of the research environment in general
- Get hands-on research experience on a specific topic of Psychology of your interest
How?
By taking part in a research project led by a staff member.
Minimum duration: 2 months; Maximum duration: 12 months
Minimum hours/week: 2 hours; Maximum hours/week: 4 hours
The number of hours undertaken will depend on the time of year and your commitments in relation to your studies and should be discussed and agreed with your supervisor.
Is there a selection process?
The VRA experience is agreed with the supervisor. If the supervisor accepts the application and there are places available, then no further selection is needed. If there are more applications than places available, then there is a selection process.
The selection is based on:
- CV (qualifications acquired up until the application and extracurricular relevant activities)
- Personal statement highlighting the reason for pursuing this opportunity ( e.g. experience useful for pursuing Masters programme or PhD position; experience useful for developing particular skills; experience useful for deciding between clinical and research career)
- Match between abilities-project (e.g. if project requires use of SPSS independently, unlikely to benefit year 2 student).
Here is what previous students have said about their experiences…
Video 1
Video 2
If you are interested in becoming a VRA for any of the projects below, please email the relevant staff contact copying in VRA Coordinator:
Edinburgh – Dr Kelly Wolfe k.wolfe@hw.ac.uk
Dubai – Dr. Hajar Aman Key-Yekani H.Aman_Key_Yekani@hw.ac.uk
Edinburgh VRA Opportunities
| Campus: | Edinburgh |
| Project: | Congruence effects in the spread of (mis)information |
| Description: | Misinformation plagues modern society. To combat it, it is important to understand how it spreads in communities. Features of the source of information affects whether we believe a piece of information. We investigate whether it also affects who we, in turn, share that information with. Following Tamariz et al. (2023), we will test the hypothesis that congruence between the context of learning and the context of onward sharing promotes transmission. In simpler terms:
We will analyse whether participants tend to transmit the “expert version” more in the “expert” condition, and the “peer version” more in the “peer condition”. Tamariz, M., Papa, A., Cristea, M., McGuigan, N. (2023) Context congruence: How associative learning modulates cultural evolution. PLoS ONE 18(4): e0282776. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282776 |
| VRA Role: |
– Preparation of stimuli – Study programming (SurveyLab) – Data collection – Data processing and analysis in R |
| Start date: | 24th April 2025 |
| Duration: | 2-6 months, with flexibility based on student availability. |
| Benefits to VRA: |
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| Staff Contact: | Dr Monica Tamariz |
| Email: | M.Tamariz@hw.ac.uk Students should submit a brief outline of why they would like the role, why they think they are right for the role, and how they feel they could contribute to the project (max 200 words) via email but are free to contact with any questions in advance of this submission. |
| Campus: | Dubai, Edinburgh, Malaysia |
| Project: | Investigating how meta-perceptions shape critical thinking and fact-checking |
| Description: | As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly integral to information dissemination, understanding how people evaluate content – particularly politically charged or factual claims – has never been more pressing. At the heart of this process lies critical thinking, a skill central to discerning truth in a world saturated with AI-generated content (Lo, 2023). Meta-perceptions related to intellectual and critical thinking capabilities may play an overlooked but vital role in shaping information evaluation and fact-checking behaviors. Meta-perceptions can influence actions in ways that transcend individual traits. For instance, individuals who believe they are seen as critical thinkers by others may actively seek to reinforce this image through behaviors like fact-checking or questioning claims (Grutterink & Meister, 2021; Pennycook & Rand, 2019). Conversely, overconfidence in being perceived as discerning could lead to uncritical acceptance of false or misleading content (Garrett & Weeks, 2017). In an era where AI-generated content, often indistinguishable from human-created materials, is used for news, advertising, and even propaganda, exploring the intersection of meta-perceptions and critical thinking is crucial. This study aims to explore these dynamics by investigating how meta-perceptions influence the likelihood of engaging in fact-checking or critical evaluation when presented with politically or factually oriented content. Specifically, it will assess whether individuals with strong meta-perceptions of being viewed as skeptical or critical are more likely to question information and whether these tendencies are amplified or mitigated by content framing, source attribution (e.g., AI vs. human), or cultural norms (e.g., collectivist vs. individualist). This project will be a series of quantitative studies. |
| VRA Role: |
– Literature searching – Literature organization (Excel) – Study programming (Qualtrics or SurveyLab) – Data collection – Involvement with data analysis |
| Start date: | Immediately |
| Duration: | 2-6 months, however this can be flexible based on the student. |
| Benefits to VRA: | You will gain experience literature searching, programming an online study, data collection, and potentially analysis of statistics. You will learn about meta-perceptions in a cross-cultural context, use of AI, fact-checking, and critical thinking. These are transferrable skills that can benefit the VRA in their own thesis and in research they may be involved with. The VRA will also have the potential to be involved with research dissemination at local or international conferences, networking opportunities, and research publications. |
| Staff Contact: | Dr Melissa Pavetich |
| Email: | M.Pavetich@hw.ac.uk Students should submit an outline of why they would like the role, why they think they are right for the role, and how they feel they could contribute to the project (max 300 words) via email but are free to contact with any questions in advance of this submission. |
| Campus: | Edinburgh |
| Project: | Exploring the role of identity leadership in academic citizenship behaviours and wellbeing. |
| Description: | Academic institutions are typically large-scale organisations employing substantial numbers of academic staff to perform teaching, research, management, and administrative roles. In a context of growing economic pressures and a proliferation of performance metrics within academia, citizenship behaviours, that may not be explicitly defined within the remit of academic workloads, are essentially to the effective operation of academic institutions and their research culture. Enacting citizenship behaviours, e.g., unofficial mentoring, support for PGR students, development of and participation in events that support research culture, peer reviewing etc., may feel burdensome but they also constitute valuable prosocial behaviours that can be rewarding in the context of a positive working environment. The presence of prosocial behaviour also provides a useful litmus test of well-functioning groups. Social psychological research within the Social Identity Approach suggests that 1) social group bonds (e.g., work teams or organisational group identities) can influence health, wellbeing, and helping behaviours positively; 2) meaningful group bonds and leadership that reflects and advances workplace group identities leads to more motivation, increased performance, greater trust, and stronger connections between group members (i.e., employees). Drawing upon this evidence, this research project will begin to explore the influence of leadership behaviours and workplace group identity processes on employee wellbeing and vital citizenship behaviours. A literature review and subsequent pilot survey study will begin to identify the predictors, mediators, and outcomes in these pathways (e.g., local and organisational identification, stress, productivity, trust in leadership, communication styles, burnout, and perceived agency). The study will be aimed at producing vital insights into the role of leadership and organisational dynamics in motivating citizenship behaviours and maintaining employee wellbeing in academic workplaces. These insights will be used to generate a funding application for a large-scale mixed method study aimed at influencing institutional practice and policy in the UK and beyond. |
| VRA Role: | The VRA will assist with any of the following activities: – Literature searching and reviewing – Literature synthesising – Short report writing – Creating literature and methods overviews and assessment of existing projects – Survey design and research planning – Ethical application preparation – Pilot data analysis |
| Start date: | From March 2025 |
| Duration: | Ranging from 2-6 months. |
| Benefits to VRA: | As a VRA on this project, you will have the opportunity to: – Develop essential research skills, including literature reviewing, critical analysis of existing theory and research, research design for data collection. – Collaborate with an interdisciplinary research team comprised of early and senior career researchers. – Develop knowledge and understanding of the impact of organisational and social relationships on prosocial behaviours and staff wellbeing – Gain detailed knowledge of the ethical principles guiding research and practical experience of ethical permissions processes. – Participate in real world research with the potential to impact policy and practice – Participate in research with potential for publication and student co-authorship – Enhance your CV and employability through skills building and exposure to professional networks |
| Staff Contact: | Dr Mhairi Bowe Research Portal |
| Email: | M.Bowe@hw.ac.uk Students should submit an outline of why they would like the role, why they think they are right for the role, and how they feel they could contribute to the project via email but are free to contact with any questions in advance of this submission. |
| Campus: | Edinburgh |
| Project: | Pro-Environmental Behaviours in the Workplace |
| Description: | Employees play a crucial role in advancing environmental sustainability within organisations, as their daily behaviours and decisions significantly influence the institution’s overall sustainability performance. This research project seeks to provide a comprehensive understanding of the individual, managerial, organisational, and cultural factors that drive Pro-environmental Behaviours (PEBs), or Employee Green Behaviour (EGB), at Heriot-Watt University, across both the Edinburgh and Dubai campuses. Through a mixed-methods approach, including an ongoing survey and planned qualitative focus groups, the study aims to generate valuable insights that will not only contribute to academic literature through journal publications but also directly inform and shape university policies and practices. Ultimately, the goal is to improve the institution’s sustainability performance by encouraging and enabling employees to adopt more sustainable behaviours in their day-to-day activities. |
| VRA Role: | The VRA could assist with any of the following activities: – Literature searching – Literature synthesising and writing – Creating literature frameworks on excel – Analysing quantitative data – Transcription and analysis of qualitative – Report writing |
| Start Date: | ASAP – From October 2024 |
| Duration: | Completely optional for student commitment – ranging from 2-5 months. |
| Benefits to VRA: | As a VRA on this project, you will have the opportunity to: – Develop essential research skills, including data collection, analysis, and reporting. – Gain practical experience in sustainability research within a university setting. – Work closely with an interdisciplinary research team. – Enhance your understanding of pro-environmental behaviours and organisational sustainability. – Contribute to research that will directly inform university policy and practices. – Strengthen your CV with valuable research experience. – Build professional networks within academia and the sustainability field. – Potentially co-author future publications in academic journals. |
| Staff Contact: | Dr Mioara Cristea |
| Email: | M.Cristea@hw.ac.uk |
| Campus: | Edinburgh |
| Project: | I’m still learning: Collaborative learning in person and remotely in aging |
| Description: | We’re interested in understanding how learning new skills or information changes as we age, and how we can support learning when we’re older. Specifically, we’re hoping to identify whether there are differences in people’s learning (including long-term benefits) depending on who they learned with (i.e., with their partner, a stranger, or alone). For this study, older adults (aged 65+ years) had to bring someone with them, such as a friend or their husband/wife, to take part together. They would play a learning game together, and then also played the game with a stranger and by themselves. Participants also completed several cognitive tests to assess their working memory, processing speed, and Theory of Mind. We also asked people a week later to recall the figures that were in their learning task, to see whether there were any differences in long-term memory. |
| VRA Role: | We are looking for students who can help analyse the video recordings of people interacting with each other during the learning task. From these videos, we want to see how many turns people took in their conversations, how many words they spoke, and so on. The VRA(s) on the project would be given the transcripts of these recordings to use to calculate these values with. |
| Start Date: | Ongoing |
| Duration: | Likely 3-6 months (though the VRA can participate for less) |
| Benefits to VRA: | You will gain knowledge on how process qualitative data for analysis and transforming qualitative data into quantitative data. You will also gain experience of working in a research team and what designs and types of data are common in cognitive research, specifically in assessing learning. |
| Staff Contact: | Dr Kelly Wolfe |
| Email: | k.wolfe@hw.ac.uk |
| Campus: | Edinburgh |
| Project: | Collaborative Learning with Social Robots in Ageing |
| Description: | We’re interested in understanding how learning new skills or information changes as we age, and how we can support learning when we’re older. Specifically, we’re hoping to identify whether there are differences in people’s learning (including long-term benefits) depending on who they learned with. In this study, we compared whether people learned better with a research assistant (human), a digital assistant (voice in the room), or a robot. For this study, older adults (aged 65+ years) would be assigned to one of the three conditions (human, digital assistant, robot) and would play a learning game. Participants also completed several cognitive tests to assess their working memory, processing speed, and Theory of Mind. We also asked people a week later to recall the figures that were in their learning task, to see whether there were any differences in long-term memory. |
| VRA Role: | We are looking for students who can help analyse the video recordings of people interacting with each other during the learning task. From these videos, we want to see how many turns people took in their conversations, how many words they spoke, and so on. The VRA(s) on the project would be given the transcripts of these recordings to use to calculate these values with. |
| Start Date: | Ongoing |
| Duration: | Likely 3 months |
| Benefits to VRA: | You will gain knowledge on how process qualitative data for analysis and transforming qualitative data into quantitative data. You will also gain experience of working in a research team and what designs and types of data are common in cognitive research, specifically in assessing learning. |
| Staff Contact: | Dr Kelly Wolfe |
| Email: | k.wolfe@hw.ac.uk |
| Campus: | Edinburgh, Dubai, Malaysia |
| Project: | Validation of a potential training paradigm for student presentation skills |
| Description: | The aim of the current study is to trial a combination of exposure and cognitive restructuring in a training paradigm with live social performance situations in order to provide the basis for research development in a virtual training application programme |
| VRA Role: | We are looking for students who can help running the study and act as audience members where participants engage in presentation practice. You will help with administering feedback exercises and in analysing behaviours. |
| Start Date: | Ongoing |
| Duration: | The study will involve coding, helping to recruit and conduct the study and analysis. |
| Benefits to VRA: | You will gain experience of working with groups of participants in an online video study and learn about social anxiety in relation to speech content, gestures and attention. You will also gain knowledge of analysis and statistics depending on your role. |
| Staff Contact: | Dr Mel McKendrick |
| Email: | M.McKendrick@hw.ac.uk |
Dubai VRA Opportunities
| Campus: | Dubai, Edinburgh, Malaysia |
| Project: | Investigating how meta-perceptions shape critical thinking and fact-checking |
| Description: | As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly integral to information dissemination, understanding how people evaluate content – particularly politically charged or factual claims – has never been more pressing. At the heart of this process lies critical thinking, a skill central to discerning truth in a world saturated with AI-generated content (Lo, 2023). Meta-perceptions related to intellectual and critical thinking capabilities may play an overlooked but vital role in shaping information evaluation and fact-checking behaviors. Meta-perceptions can influence actions in ways that transcend individual traits. For instance, individuals who believe they are seen as critical thinkers by others may actively seek to reinforce this image through behaviors like fact-checking or questioning claims (Grutterink & Meister, 2021; Pennycook & Rand, 2019). Conversely, overconfidence in being perceived as discerning could lead to uncritical acceptance of false or misleading content (Garrett & Weeks, 2017). In an era where AI-generated content, often indistinguishable from human-created materials, is used for news, advertising, and even propaganda, exploring the intersection of meta-perceptions and critical thinking is crucial. This study aims to explore these dynamics by investigating how meta-perceptions influence the likelihood of engaging in fact-checking or critical evaluation when presented with politically or factually oriented content. Specifically, it will assess whether individuals with strong meta-perceptions of being viewed as skeptical or critical are more likely to question information and whether these tendencies are amplified or mitigated by content framing, source attribution (e.g., AI vs. human), or cultural norms (e.g., collectivist vs. individualist). This project will be a series of quantitative studies. |
| VRA Role: |
– Literature searching – Literature organization (Excel) – Study programming (Qualtrics or SurveyLab) – Data collection – Involvement with data analysis |
| Start date: | Immediately |
| Duration: | 2-6 months, however this can be flexible based on the student. |
| Benefits to VRA: | You will gain experience literature searching, programming an online study, data collection, and potentially analysis of statistics. You will learn about meta-perceptions in a cross-cultural context, use of AI, fact-checking, and critical thinking. These are transferrable skills that can benefit the VRA in their own thesis and in research they may be involved with. The VRA will also have the potential to be involved with research dissemination at local or international conferences, networking opportunities, and research publications. |
| Staff Contact: | Dr Melissa Pavetich |
| Email: | M.Pavetich@hw.ac.uk Students should submit an outline of why they would like the role, why they think they are right for the role, and how they feel they could contribute to the project (max 300 words) via email but are free to contact with any questions in advance of this submission. |
| Campus: | Edinburgh, Dubai, Malaysia |
| Project: | Validation of a potential training paradigm for student presentation skills |
| Description: | The aim of the current study is to trial a combination of exposure and cognitive restructuring in a training paradigm with live social performance situations in order to provide the basis for research development in a virtual training application programme |
| VRA Role: | We are looking for students who can help running the study and act as audience members where participants engage in presentation practice. You will help with administering feedback exercises and in analysing behaviours. |
| Start Date: | Ongoing |
| Duration: | The study will involve coding, helping to recruit and conduct the study and analysis. |
| Benefits to VRA: | You will gain experience of working with groups of participants in an online video study and learn about social anxiety in relation to speech content, gestures and attention. You will also gain knowledge of analysis and statistics depending on your role. |
| Staff Contact: | Dr Mel McKendrick |
| Email: | M.McKendrick@hw.ac.uk |
Internships
Supervisors and students may also be interested in applying for an externally funded internship.
The BPS and EPS schemes are designed to provide a stipend to 3rd year students to assist the supervisor on a research project driven by them.
https://www.bps.org.uk/about-us/awards-and-grants/society-grants/undergraduate-research-assistantship-scheme
(Early March)
https://eps.ac.uk/undergraduate-research-bursary/ (Early March) Must be supervised by an EPS Ordinary Member – only one per department.
The Carnegie scheme is designed to give 3rd year students the direct opportunity to propose their own research project.
https://www.carnegie-trust.org/award-schemes/vacation-scholarships/ (Early February)
The Medical Research Scotland scheme is designed to provide promising undergraduate students with hands-on experience of research relevant to human health or disease. Supervisors and students should develop the project and application together. https://medicalresearchscotland.org.uk/undergraduate-vacation-scholarship/
(Early February)
The BPS and EPS schemes are designed to provide a stipend to 3rd year students to assist the supervisor on a research project driven by them.
https://www.bps.org.uk/about-us/awards-and-grants/society-grants/undergraduate-research-assistantship-scheme
(Early March)
https://eps.ac.uk/undergraduate-research-bursary/ (Early March) Must be supervised by an EPS Ordinary Member – only one per department.
The Carnegie scheme is designed to give 3rd year students the direct opportunity to propose their own research project.
https://www.carnegie-trust.org/award-schemes/vacation-scholarships/ (Early February)
The Medical Research Scotland scheme is designed to provide promising undergraduate students with hands-on experience of research relevant to human health or disease. Supervisors and students should develop the project and application together. https://medicalresearchscotland.org.uk/undergraduate-vacation-scholarship/
(Early February)