Interested in becoming a student research assistant?

What do research assistants do?

The role of a research assistant (RA) is broad and can vary depending on the needs and events of the quarter (e.g., whether we are currently running a study, or whether we are focused on design or analysis). Here are some main skills that you can expect to gain experience in.

Study design/Idea generation: You'll contribute creative ideas and insights during team meetings about ongoing studies and future research directions.

Literature reviews: You'll conduct in-depth searches through research databases to compile comprehensive lists of relevant studies on specific topics.

Data collection: You'll run studies in-lab or online, in which you’ll help coordinate participant scheduling and guide participants through the study protocol.

Data preparation & cleaning: You'll prepare and clean datasets by reorganizing data, manually scoring qualitative responses, and identifying low-quality participants.

Basic statistical tests & reporting: You'll run descriptive statistics, create correlation matrices, learn how to perform and report fundamental statistical tests (e.g., t-tests and ANOVAs), and format results into tables.

Additional resources: Optional in-depth statistics workshops and opportunities for more specialized skill-building are available, as well as opportunities to lead your own independent research!