Graduate Teaching Assistant – Department of Psychology

PhD Scholarship with Graduate Teaching Assistantship 

School of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology 

There are 2 opportunities available.

The School seeks to award a number of PhD scholarships with associated Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) positions to outstanding doctoral candidates with clear potential to excel as academic teachers and researchers. The GTA PhD scholarship is a four-year fixed term position: Students undertake a PhD on a 0.75 FTE basis alongside a 0.25 FTE teaching contract. Remuneration consists of a PhD stipend of £14,427 per annum (0.75 of the standard UKRI rate), plus a salary of £7,401. In addition, PhD tuition fees will be covered. 

About Our Team 

Research in Psychology is conducted within our Centre for Applied Behavioural Sciences. The research we do is grouped by three main themes: Cognition, Brain and Behaviour; Lifespan Health and Wellbeing; Work, Society and Environment. Full profiles are available here, with more information on the Centre for Applied Behavioural Sciences here. 

Detailed Description 

Two posts are available in the Department of Psychology. Under the leadership of the Head of Department, Prof. Adele Dickson, the role-holders will provide teaching support on our psychology undergraduate programme, including large and small group teaching, tutorials and assessment activities. 

We invite applications from candidates who can address one of the following topic areas in their PhD: 

Responding to food poverty inequalities: The role of community dynamics, identity, and marginalisation in food aid experiences. Food poverty is widespread across the UK. City-centre foodbanks have proliferated, and aid delivery has increased exponentially, accelerated by austerity and the COVID-19 pandemic (Trussell Trust, 2020). These stigma-laden helping interactions can be influenced by shared identities (e.g., humanising interactions) and community relationships with volunteers can facilitate aid provision (Bowe et al., 2018). Less is known about the experiences of the ‘hidden hungry’ (Sellick, 2019), such as marginalised groups and those in rural contexts. Rural hardship is exasperated by socio-economic and environmental factors (King et al., 2015) and can comprise alternative forms involving different identity dynamics (e.g., community kitchens). Existing research is also limited to the ‘typical’ foodbank user (i.e., white city-dwelling males), neglecting the experiences of marginalised populations. The project will involve a mixed methods approach (qualitative and large-scale surveys) exploring the varied nature of contemporary food aid, embedded community experiences, and the social dynamics underpinning barriers and facilitators of help-provision. 

The supervisory team for this project area will consist of Dr Mhairi Bowe, Prof. Suzanne Fitzpatrick & Dr Mark Atkinson. Candidates interested in this project area are encouraged to contact Dr Bowe ([email protected]) for an informal discussion about their research proposal prior to submitting their application. 

Working beyond state pension age: Who benefits and who doesn’t? Extended working has been shown to potentially have a positive impact on health. However, research on the effectiveness of interventions to support healthy working beyond state pension age (BSPA) has produced mixed outcomes. It is known that some working groups (e.g., women) frequently have insufficient pension provision at normal retirement age. BSPA workers’ experiences are variable. A simplification would be to characterise two groups: ‘autonomous’ and ‘non-autonomous’ workers. Non-autonomous individuals engage with BSPA work as a requirement and may undertake roles that impose significant personal, physical or psychological challenges. In contrast, autonomous BSPA workers work through choice, seeking satisfaction, socialisation, or professional commitment. Interventions could offer promise for all workers, but targeted approaches may be required to effectively support diverse experiences. This project will explore this area through a robust review of the literature, followed by an investigation into key factors for stakeholders, and a series of experiments. 

The supervisory team for this project area will consist of Dr Terry Lansdown, Prof. Kate Sang & Prof. Alan Gow. Candidates interested in this project area are encouraged to contact Dr Lansdown ([email protected]) for an informal discussion about their research proposal prior to submitting their application. 

Co-designing and developing Sport Psychology strategies and skills for disadvantaged youth in Scotland. Sport Psychology strategies have been implemented in different ‘non-traditional’ contexts such as those used in the ‘My Strengths Training for Life’ project (Cummings, et. al. 2022). The project synthesised existing research on the topic and collated the views of key stakeholders including young people, policy-makers and front-line staff to identify psychosocial needs. The findings from this phase allowed for the co-creation of a tailored mental skills intervention and associated resources which were then implemented through community partners to support young people at risk of homelessness. This project aims to adopt a similar approach to address the physical and mental health needs of disadvantaged youth in the Edinburgh region. The psychosocial challenges faced by this population include financial stressors, marginalisation and stigma which can undermine their resilience/ability to cope. Introducing social identity resources such as social support can mitigate these potential negative effects. Project phases will include: (1) co-production of objectives and identification of needs/resources specific to the population and context, and (2) designing and implementing an intervention. 

The supervisory team for this project area will consist of Dr Jenny Meggs, Dr Mioara Cristea & Dr Mhairi Bowe. Candidates interested in this project area are encouraged to contact Dr Meggs ([email protected]) for an informal discussion about their research proposal prior to submitting their application. 

Volunteers’ cultural journey. In 2023, the UK registered 19% more asylum applications compared to the previous year. Volunteers are critical in the support of forcibly displaced persons (FDPs). However, volunteers face challenges such as compassion fatigue (CF) and burnout. To deal with this, they are trained to set boundaries at work; but this may limit rapport-building with FDPs, and its relational benefits (e.g. well-being). We propose that majority members’ acculturation may play a key role to better understand these relationships. This is because majority members (e.g. white UK nationals) who work with FDPs as volunteers will endorse acculturation preferences – to maintain the (majority group) national culture and/or adopt FDPs’ cultures – which may buffer or worsen the impact of support delivery (e.g. decrease CF) through, for example, feeling part of the FDPs’ culture. Mixed-method approaches could investigate, for example, how majority volunteers’ acculturation relates to CF, well-being, and FDP’s acculturation to inform volunteer practices. 

The supervisory team for this project area will consist of Dr Katharina Lefringhausen & Dr Mhairi Bowe. Candidates interested in this project area are encouraged to contact Dr Lefringhausen ([email protected]) for an informal discussion about their research proposal prior to submitting their application. 

How do humans innovate? Human culture (our behaviour, knowledge, technology, beliefs and values) evolves through the cumulative retention of adaptive innovations. For standard cultural evolutionary theory, innovation proceeds by ‘Guided Variation’: humans intentionally produce adaptive innovations. Contrastingly, Darwinian approaches to culture espouse ‘Random Mutation & Selection’: innovations are as likely to be adaptive as maladaptive; during practice and usage, the former are adopted and the latter discarded. This PhD will contribute to this debate by testing how individual innovation is shaped by, for example, chance (is serendipity necessary for true innovation?); social and individual learning (does learning from others stifle innovation?); functional fixedness (is innovating easier than co-opting existing solutions for new problems?); expertise (do experts best understand and flexibly exploit affordances for innovation?) or over-imitation (does blind copying retain maladaptive innovations?). Methods may include experiments with child or adult participants; iterated learning studies; secondary data analysis; computer simulations, etc. 

The supervisory team for this project area will consist of Dr Monica Tamariz & Dr Emily Messer. Candidates interested in this project area are encouraged to contact Dr Tamariz ([email protected]) for an informal discussion about their research proposal prior to submitting their application. 

Optimising pedagogical strategies for teaching novel tasks. Teaching is a key mechanism underpinning human cumulative knowledge. In this PhD you will research which teaching strategies optimize learner performance and understanding using experimental tasks like the Tower of Hanoi puzzle, knot-making or building simple machines. Your research questions may include: 

What is the role of individual learning in supporting teaching? 

How is the choice of teaching and social learning strategies shaped by different goals (e.g., teach procedures vs. teach error avoidance vs. teach deep understanding)? What kinds of mental representations (implicit, explicit) do these strategies elicit in teachers and learners? 

How is learning influenced by teaching mode (e.g., speech vs. silent gesture)? 

How do these effects change over the lifespan? How do they shape human cultural evolution? 

You may conduct traditional experiments with child and adult participants, iterated learning experimental designs, computer simulations associated with the experiments, and qualitative methods, etc. 

The supervisory team for this project area will consist of Dr Monica Tamariz, Dr Laras Yuniarto & Dr Emily Messer. Candidates interested in this project area are encouraged to contact Dr Tamariz ([email protected]) for an informal discussion about their research proposal prior to submitting their application. 

Key Duties and Responsibilities 

Reporting to the Head of Department, the post-holder will: 

• Undertake a PhD on one of the topics specified above, maintaining an appropriate rate of progress and engaging in relevant training and other events as required. 
• Develop and deliver teaching in psychology, including delivery to a range of group sizes in both in-person and online environments. 
• Provide flexible, appropriate, and timely support to students using a variety of media. 
• Prepare and mark assessments and provide student feedback as required, and in line with School policies and standards. 
• Contribute to the administrative work of the Department as required. 
• Undertake other duties as required by the Head of Department. 

Relevant training will be provided alongside the role. In particular, during the first two years of the contract, the post-holder will be expected to undertake training in teaching and learning as required by the University, as well as the School’s PGCert in Research Methods (unless equivalent qualifications are already held). 

Education, Qualifications and Experience 

The person requirements to successfully perform the role. 

Essential criteria: 

• An undergraduate degree in psychology (or a closely-related area) with a minimum 2:1 classification (or equivalent). 
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Candidates for whom English is a second language should meet the University’s minimum English-language requirements for entry onto the PhD programme. If you have not already studied a degree programme that was taught and examined in the medium of English, the minimum overall IELTS score is 6.5 with no score lower than 6.0 in Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening. 
• A viable research proposal (max. 1500 words) for PhD study on one of the topics listed above. 
• Good general IT skills. 
• Ability to manage own time in order to balance the requirements of teaching and PhD study. 
• Ability to work as part of a teaching team to deliver a high quality student experience. 

Desirable criteria: 

• A postgraduate Master’s degree in a relevant field, or equivalent research experience. 
• Relevant teaching and/or professional experience. 

About Heriot Watt University 

Heriot-Watt University has established a reputation for world-class teaching and leading-edge, relevant research, which has made it one of the top UK universities for innovation, business and industry. 

Heriot-Watt University has five campuses: three in the UK (Edinburgh, Scottish Borders and Orkney), one in Dubai and one in Malaysia. The University offers a highly distinctive range of degree programmes in the specialist areas of science, engineering, design, business, psychology and languages. Heriot-Watt is also Scotland’s most international university, boasting the largest international student cohort. 

About Our School 

Social Sciences is the largest of five academic schools at Heriot-Watt University and we provide teaching and research across our core disciplines: 

The Edinburgh Business School: 

• Accountancy, Economics, and Finance 
• Management 
• Marketing and Operations 

Languages and Intercultural Studies 

Psychology 

We specialise in industry-focused degree programmes which embrace a truly international outlook. Our degrees are taught by experienced professionals and highly regarded academics, and we are proud to produce high-calibre, career-ready graduates and offer a full range of degree choices at undergraduate and postgraduate level. 

Further details can be found at: https://www.hw.ac.uk/uk/schools/social-sciences.htm 

How to Apply 

Applications can be submitted up to midnight (UK time) on Wednesday the 10th of July 2024.

When applying for this role, please submit a single pdf that includes a cover letter that identifies how your skills and experience are a good match for this position, a copy of your PhD research proposal (clearly indicating which project you are applying for), a copy of your CV, and the names and contact details for two referees. 

Heriot-Watt University is committed to securing equality of opportunity in employment and to the creation of an environment in which individuals are selected, trained, promoted, appraised and otherwise treated on the sole basis of their relevant merits and abilities. Equality and diversity are all about maximising potential and creating a culture of inclusion for all. 

Heriot-Watt University values diversity across our University community and welcomes applications from all sectors of society, particularly from underrepresented groups. For more information, please see our website https://www.hw.ac.uk/uk/services/equality-diversity.htm and also our award-winning work in Disability Inclusive Science Careers https://disc.hw.ac.uk/ . 

We welcome and will consider flexible working patterns e.g. part-time working and job share options. 

Use our total rewards calculator: https://www.hw.ac.uk/about/work/total-rewards-calculator.htm to see the value of benefits provided by Heriot-Watt University. 

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