Research assistant

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The role

An exciting opportunity for a Research Assistant in the School of Psychology. (this is a part time, fixed term contract upto July 2026).

Spatial abilities include the ability to understand the spatial properties of objects and to mentally visualise objects and problems. Spatial abilities in childhood predict adult expertise in STEM, and spatial training has been shown to be effective in improving children’s mathematics competence. This project is a partnership between the leading UK spatial cognition lab (CoGDeV lab, directed by Prof. Emily Farran), at the University of Surrey, the ESRC Centre for Early Mathematics Learning (Director: Prof. Camilla Gilmore) and White Rose Education (WRE), the leading provider of maths resources. 

Drawing on our existing resources and our Spatial Reasoning Toolkit, you will be part of a team working with WRE to create spatial training materials to be used by teachers alongside WRE mathematics content. This process will use evidence-based knowledge exchange. You will lead the evaluation of the new content. This involves communicating with schools, contributing to training resource materials, supporting the implementation of the spatial training programme and evaluating teacher acceptability and children’s spatial and mathematics performance. You will draft a report that will be used to support a future Knowledge Training Partnership grant application to expand this partnership. You will also contribute to presentations and publications.

About you

You will be part of a strong team of experts in spatial cognition and mathematical learning at the interface between research and industry. You will have a BSc Degree or equivalent qualification in Psychology or a related subject, experience in working with children and schools, in conducting cognitive behavioural tasks or assessments with children, and in standard data coding. You will also have experience of statistical analysis using statistical packages such as R or SPSS. 

How to apply

Please apply on the university website with your CV and cover letter. You are welcome to contact Prof. Emily Farran (e.farran@surrey.ac.uk) if you would like further information or to discuss the post.

The University of Surrey reserves the right to close this vacancy early or extend based on Volume and Calibre of applications.

Further details

For more information and to apply online, please download the further details and click on the 'apply online' button above.

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