Opportunities for Students
Below are some of the common ways that students can become involved with ongoing work in the SPA lab.
Volunteer Research Assistant (RA) Program
We are always keen to recruit motivated students who are interested in gaining some research experience. This is a great opportunity to get into the lab and be involved at various levels with constructing and running experiments.
What you get out of it:- hands-on experience (good way to find out if you’re suited for a research career before committing to grad school!)
- learn about experimental psychology and Cognition
- possible letter of reference about the abilities/skills you learned and demonstrated in the lab
Requirements for student assistantship:
- preferably 1st, 2nd, or 3rd year standing (but will consider 4th year)
- no experience is necessary, but familiarity with computers/programs is an asset (e.g., Word, Excel, etc.)
- willingness to learn and pay attention to detail
If you are interested then contact Dr Arnold (michelle.arnold@flinders.edu.au) for further information. Expressing interest will not guarantee a position, but it will be a rather informal interview process if you decide you are interested in becoming a volunteer student RA.
PhD and Masters Students
I am open to discussing PhD or Masters research topics in various memory and
metacognitive areas. Some specific examples of research topics that I am interested in
include:
- Exploring cognitive and personality variables related to the forgot-it-all-along effect and false memories
- Monitoring and the strategic regulation of accuracy (in test-taking and/or recognition memory)
- Examining judgement and decision making in paranormal beliefs
- Exploring underlying mechanisms of memory by comparing objective and subjective measures of memory performance
- Judgement and decision making issues related to missing persons and/or wanted (i.e., for a crime) individuals
Honours Students
Each year I will take on a few honours students, and I am willing to discuss any idea a student may have for his/her final year project. Alternatively, students can express interest in an ongoing line of research in the lab and we can discuss how they may do a related project for their honours thesis.
Work Study Students
One requirement of our Bachelor of Psychology (Honours) program is for students to do work placements to gain experience. Throughout the year we will take several work study students into the SPA lab who will gain experience doing common lab tasks, as well as learn how to run participants through a variety of experiments.
