PSYC240: Research Experience

The Baby Learning Lab, directed by Dr. Lauren Emberson, studies the capacity of the infant brain to learn, and how these capacities develop across the first months and years of life. To understand the learning mechanisms of the infant brain, we utilize both behavioural (i.e., quantifying actions or eye-movements) and neuroimaging (i.e., functional near-infrared spectroscopy or ‘fNIRS’) methodologies in our research. RAs perform a variety of tasks as a part of the Baby Learning Lab. RAs are trained to contact families to invite them to participate in our in-person studies; to prepare materials for upcoming studies; to help support family visits and fNIRS/eye-tracking data collection; and to code videos of infant behaviour. With experience, RAs are typically assigned to specific, ongoing projects that involve even more hands-on research experience; these specialized tasks may include performing literature reviews and helping with data processing and analysis.

• Minimum Commitment: 10 hours/week
• Minimum Semester Commitment: 2 semesters
• Will References Be Requested: No (but a student can choose to submit them)
• Will Transcript Be Requested: No
• Will Interview Be Requested: Yes
• Additional Information Required: A description of prior informal or formal experience that might be relevant to the position (working or interacting with infants, children, or parents), if any, and (2) a statement regarding how the student would support and contribute to equity, diversity and inclusion in the lab.

At the Centre for Cognitive Development (PI: Dr. Odic), we are interested in how children think about number, space, and time, and how these early representations help them learn about language, mathematics, and metacognition. Students in our lab are trained on how to contact local Vancouver families by phone and email to invite them to come to our lab and participate in our studies. Students can expect to be part of a team that contacts families and will be trained on how to conduct the studies themselves both online and in our on-campus lab. We also expect that students will participate in weekly meetings that will help them grasp the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of the projects.

We are currently looking for Daycare RAs at our lab. In this position, you would book, commute to, and conduct studies at schools and daycares in the Vancouver area. For a more complete list of Expectations and Responsibilities for Daycare RAs, you can read our formal document on our website.

• Minimum Commitment: 8 hours/week - 2 weekdays
• Minimum Semester Commitment: 2 semesters.
• Will References Be Requested: No
• Will Transcript Be Requested: No
• Will Interview Be Requested: Yes
• Additional Information Required: description of previous experience working with children, if any.

The Infant Studies Centre, directed by Janet Werker, studies how infants perceive speech and acquire language during the first few years of life. To explore the roots and mechanisms of language development, we study infants growing up in different language environments (for example, those growing up monolingual versus bilingual) and utilize behavioural (i.e., eye-tracking), electrophysiological (i.e., ERP/EEG) and neuroimaging (i.e., fNIRS) methodologies. RAs perform a variety of tasks as a part of the Werker Lab. RAs will be trained to contact families to invite them to participate in our in-person and online infant studies; to prepare materials for upcoming studies; and to code videos of infant looking-time behaviour. With experience, RAs are typically assigned to specific, ongoing projects that involve valuable hands-on research experience; these specialized tasks may include performing literature reviews and directly supporting data collection, processing and analysis.

• Minimum commitment: 10 hours/week
• Minimal semester commitment: 2 semesters, but under exceptional circumstances could consider one term.
• Will References Be Requested: No
• Will Transcript Be Requested: Yes
• Will Interview Be Requested: Yes
• Additional Information Required: A description of prior experience that might be relevant to the position (working with infants, children, parents or in a research setting), if any.

The research in the Rights Lab is broadly aimed to improve statistical and methodological practice in scientific research, particularly for psychology and related fields. More specifically, the work in this lab focuses on addressing methodological complexities and developing statistical methods for multilevel/hierarchical data contexts (e.g., patients nested within clinicians, students nested within schools, or repeated measures nested within individuals). Undergraduate RAs will typically start work in the lab by completing readings and relevant study materials, and will later assist the PI (Dr. Jason Rights) and graduate students in conducting literature reviews, proofreading documents, and testing and developing statistical software. Advanced students (e.g., those who’ve taken many statistics courses) may also assist in mathematical derivations, conducting simulations, and writing manuscripts.

• Minimum Commitment: 5 hours/week
• Minimum Semester Commitment: 2 semesters preferred
• Will References Be Requested: No
• Will Transcript Be Requested: Yes
• Will Interview Be Requested: Yes
• Additional Information Required: description of previous experience with statistics or math

Doing hands-on research in psychology labs is a common way of gaining many skills that are important for graduate work in psychology (e.g., data coding, participant recruitment, administration of tests and measurements, and more). These positions are known as “research assistantships”, or RA positions. While most psychology labs at UBC support undergraduate students as RAs, this is typically only done through volunteer experiences or third- and fourth-year directed studies courses.

Many students, however, cannot volunteer their time to work in psychology labs as RAs, and are therefore systematically excluded from this opportunity. The central goal of PSYC240 is to provide students with an alternative arrangement of working in a psychology lab for course credit, if they prefer this to volunteering.

We have three goals:

1. be a vehicle for students who have entry-level research positions (acquired through the portal or otherwise) to receive course credit for position instead of volunteering;
2. to simplify the process of applying to entry-level research assistant psychology labs through a centralized portal for students looking for new positions;
3. to better understand the barriers that students experience when joining psychology labs, such that we can update our Department’s policies and protocols to, in the long run, be more transparent and equitable about students joining labs.

The portal typically opens in early July and November, each time recruiting for the upcoming semester. We suggest that you pay attention to this page and to Department of Psychology social pages for updates on the date the portal will open. The portal closes when the add/drop date for the upcoming term passes.

Note that the portal remains open even if all labs with new positions have recruited to allow students to submit conversions from volunteer positions.

We don’t think so. Students in this course, like any course, will receive course credit that they can apply towards their degree requirement, and this course in particular can help create space within their timetables. Additionally, labs are not asked to hold or reserve any positions for PSYC240, so the pool of positions remains as open as it was before the introduction of the course.

A single credit in PSYC240 is equivalent to 5 hours/week in a lab as an RA for the duration of an academic term. While we expect most students to take PSYC240 for three credits, we want to give additional flexibility for students who do not have enough time for this commitment. Students therefore can take PSYC240 in a number of different configurations.

For example, a student can decide that they can at most spend 5h/week for 2 semesters, and therefore enroll in PSYC240 to gain one credit in the first term and one credit in the second. Or, a student might have 15h/week in the second term, but no time in the first.

Any of these configurations are acceptable so long as the student and the lab they are participating in agree on it. Once the student and the lab agree, the PSYC240 Course Coordinator is notified and handles all the administrative details to make this happen.

No – as with any other UBC course you can only take it once. For students interested in gaining course credit after PSYC240, we recommend that students review Directed Studies as an option.

No – at this time the course is limited to three credits.

Most labs require a minimum commitment of 7.5h/week for two semesters. The easiest way to make this happen is to have the student enroll in a half credit split (2 credits in the Fall term and 1 credit in the Winter term), but have them split their time evenly in both, working 7.5h/week for both semesters.

If a lab asks you to do 7.5h/week for two semesters, the easiest way to accommodate this is by doing a half credit split (2 credits in Fall and 1 in Winter) and doing 7.5h/week throughout both terms. There is no way to accommodate half credits.

For labs with this requirement, you will receive 2 credits for your 10h/week in one term, and 1 credit for 5h of your 10h/week in the other term. To satisfy the lab requirements you will have to volunteer 5h/week in that 1-credit term. Unfortunately, the reality of some areas of psychology research is that a higher hourly commitment is required, though it is often matched by more experience gained, as well.

This means that the lab has filled their positions for the upcoming term, and has been “taken off” the portal until the next time they have open positions. We do our best to update this page when labs are done recruiting, but the portal is the authoritative list of the labs that have positions open for new positions.

Absolutely, any Department of Psychology lab can support PSYC240 students (only a subset use the portal for new positions). Simply gain approval from a member of the lab (usually a graduate student, lab manager, or faculty) and use the portal to make a "conversion".

Unfortunately not. After you submit your application you will receive an email confirmation that it has been forwarded, and at that point you just have to wait for a lab to contact you back. Some labs are quick to reply, some slow, so there is no way to find out at what stage they are each in. The only way to know that your application was not successful is that you are not contacted by the time you receive an email that all positions have been filled, which is usually around the add/drop date.

If you are worried about labs not getting back in touch, our advice is to continue looking for volunteer positions in other labs not listed on the portal while you wait. Each lab lists their own protocols for applying on their websites.

Not in this term, but you can apply for the subsequent term.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• reflect on the process of how quantitative research is conducted in psychology, including ethical decision making throughout;
• reflect on how the ethical principles of the TCPS (Tri-Council Policy Statement; or Animal Care, depending on the lab) are applied in practice to ensure ethical treatment of participants (or non-human animals), and enact those principles as relevant;
• summarize how faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students work together to create knowledge in psychological science;
• contribute tangibly to an ongoing research project by performing tasks accurately and on time (e.g., data entry, coding, scheduling, materials preparation, data collection, literature search), as assigned by the Principal Investigator (PI) of the lab you are working in;
• describe how their tasks contribute to an ongoing research project;
• discuss the role of lab meetings and/or progress update meetings with the PI and/or lead graduate student; contribute to the progress of research;
• compare and contrast research practices across psychology’s many subfields.

You will not receive a letter-grade for this course but will instead either be granted the credits or not at the end of each term. You will pass if:

1. you completed the agreed-upon number of hours in the lab, and performed your duties as expected; and
2. you completed the mandatory TCPS2 ethics training and uploaded your certificate to Canvas; and
3. for each credit you signed up for, you submit a one-page reflection paper to Canvas, alongside a list of tasks and hours completed.

For the reflection papers, you will be asked to use specific examples to discuss how you have made progress toward the PSYC 240 learning objectives. For example, you might describe the tasks they have performed over the course of the past month, and explain how these tasks have contributed to knowledge generation in empirical psychology.

Yes, all the normal rules of course add/drop/withdraw deadlines apply normally.

If you and the lab you are in both agree to change anything, please contact the PSYC240 Course Instructor, whose contact information will be on Canvas, and they will sort out any changes you need.

No, but the PSYC240 coordinator will offer optional virtual meet-ups during which we will spend time discussing careers in psychology, graduate school, finding other research positions, and more.

Before applying, please take time to read the brief description of each lab, provided for you here. You will learn about the research topics, typical responsibilities of entry-level students in the lab, and what additional application details you might need to submit at a later time. When deciding on which labs to apply to, the most important details will be making sure that you can meet their hourly and semester requirements, that you are interested in the kind of research that they do, and whether the typical tasks for RAs match the skills you want to acquire. It is also very useful to think about what skills you already have that seem like a good fit for the lab (e.g., experience working with special populations, coding skills, etc.).

Most labs want to know about why you applied to them. Some ask additional questions, and these are listed in the Lab Descriptions so you can prepare for them in advance. Consider writing a short statement about what part of their research seems particularly exciting to you (and why), and what skills you might have that make you a good fit for them.

If you are converting an existing position, we will contact a member of the lab you are in to make sure you have approval, and then add you to the course.

If you are applying for a new position, then after the application is submitted, each lab that is still recruiting students and was selected by you will receive a short version of you application, which will only have the details for them (they won’t see what other labs you applied for, or the optional demographic details). They will then review your submission and, if interested, contact you via email about next steps.

There is not, though we strongly urge you to spend time reading the descriptions of various labs and only applying to those that you are actually interested in.

We expect that many more students will apply than can be accommodated into labs (this is true for volunteer positions, too). If you do not hear back from any of the labs and you are notified that all positions are closed, it means that none of them decided to advance your application further. For all students who were not matched to a lab, the PSYC240 coordinator will also offer advice for applying next year via an email.

We also encourage students to apply to any other lab within the Department – even if they are not listed on the Application Portal – since you can always gain a volunteer position on your own and then convert to PSYC240.

PSYC240 can only accommodate work in a single lab. You are welcome to simultaneously be in other labs as a volunteer or paid RA, but you can only be formally in a single lab for the PSYC240 credits.