PhD Candidate: Fostering Resilience in Youth Using Virtual Reality

The Department of Developmental Psychology has a highly interesting job opening in collaboration with the Department of Clinical Psychology for a PhD candidate who is interested in the development of resilience in youth.

Your job
A series of interdisciplinary studies are embedded into this PhD project to examine and enhance adolescents’ self-efficacy beliefs and the relationship with developmental outcomes (such as resilience). You will use a virtual reality paradigm to examine if exposure in virtual reality can positively impact adolescents’ self-efficacy beliefs which in turn positively influences developmental outcomes.

In the position of PhD candidate you are responsible for conducting three interdisciplinary studies with different designs and populations. You will carry out activities like finalising the design of the studies, applying for ethical approval, recruitment, conducting the studies, for the data management and analyses, writing scientific papers for (inter)national peer-reviewed journals and presenting at (inter)national conferences. Studies planned within the PhD trajectory are a survey study in a sample of mid adolescents (15-17 years old) and late adolescents (18-21 years old) from various educational tracks with three waves (secondary education; secondary vocational education, higher professional education, university). Another study will focus on decreasing anxiety in students with elevated levels of fear of public speaking and in the last study findings from the first two studies will be applied in a clinical treatment at mental health centres using a single-case experimental design.

Requirements:

We are looking for someone with a high level of curiosity and creativity!

We are looking for you, if you have:

• a (research) Master's degree in psychology (or related field);
• solid experience in conducting and initiating innovative quantitative experimental research, as demonstrated by, for example, a strong assessment of the Master's thesis;
• excellent research and writing skills and good written and oral command of the English language, as well as proficiency in Dutch, as you will be interacting frequently with adolescents and schools;
• excellent interpersonal, social and communication skills, and the ability to work in a team;
• affinity with and interest in the development of adolescents;
• perseverance, creativity, and a proactive attitude;
• strong organisational and planning skills.

Furthermore your suitability is ideally exemplified by voluntary and/or clinical work with adolescents.

Salary Benefits:

We offer:

• a position for one year, with an extension to a total of five years upon a successful assessment in the first year, and with the specific intent that it results in a doctorate within this period;
• a working week of 30 tot 34 hours and a gross monthly salary between €2,770 and €3,539 in the case of full-time employment (salary scale P under the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO NU);
• 8% holiday pay and 8.3% year-end bonus;
• a pension scheme, partially paid parental leave and flexible terms of employment based on the CAO NU.

In addition to the terms of employment laid down in the CAO NU, Utrecht University has a number of schemes and facilities of its own for employees. This includes schemes facilitating professional development, leave schemes and schemes for sports and cultural activities, as well as discounts on software and other IT products. We also offer access to additional employee benefits through our Terms of Employment Options Model. In this way, we encourage our employees to continue to invest in their growth. For more information, please visit Working at Utrecht University.

32 - 36 hours per week

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