[Xmca-l] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Postdocs in Psychology and Education at Cambridge

[mike cole]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: *Sara Baker* <stb32@cam.ac.uk>
Date: Friday, December 26, 2014
Subject: [COGDEVSOC] Postdocs in Psychology and Education at Cambridge
To: cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org


Dear all,

Please can you circulate the advertisement for 3 postdocs in Early
Childhood Development (three-year appointments) to any potential
candidates?  Closing date is January 12.

http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/5707/

All the best,
Sara

*****
We wish to appoint three Research Associates to join the newly established
Centre for Research in Play, Learning and Development. This new centre,
funded by the Lego Foundation, has been established to conduct rigorous,
psychological and cross-disciplinary research into the role of play in
young children's learning and development.

Initially, three research strands will be pursued:

Establishing a longitudinal study of children's playfulness: To investigate
the development of playfulness in children and its relation to
environmental experiences and to other key abilities which are known to
most significantly impact upon cognitive and affective development and
children's short and long-term well-being.

Developing a measure of playfulness: To establish the essential
characteristics of human playful behaviour and the psychological processes
which underpin these, and to develop reliable and valid measures of
playfulness in children. The development of both behavioural tasks and
neuroscientific paradigms will make a crucial contribution to this project.

Developing and evaluating play-based, educational interventions:  To extend
the recently completed PLaNS project, which focused on playful learning to
support children's writing, it is planned to extend this work with a larger
sample and across a wider range of early learning. The focus here is
specifically on supporting children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Successful applicants will take day-to-day responsibility for running the
research program in one of the research strands, under the guidance of the
PI; review relevant literature, and report on that review; contribute to
devising research studies and projects and to the development of tasks,
coding frameworks and measurement instruments; be responsible for
recruiting and communicating with participants; collect data generated by
the studies and projects, and collate and analyse the data; direct the work
of Research Assistants; contribute to the drafting of research
publications; and carry out additional duties within the general scope and
level of the post, including involvement in the many other planned
activities of the Research Centre.

You will need a PhD in Psychology, Education or a cognate area, or
equivalent research training, experience and achievement, or be awaiting
the result of a PhD submission; research experience with breadth/depth in a
relevant field of study, and in methods and techniques of psychological
research, including theory development, measurement design, data
collection, data analysis and dissemination; experience of managing own
workload, and of working with children; and good interpersonal skills.

Experience of interdisciplinary working in psychology and education; proven
ability to take day-to-day responsibility for project management;
understanding of research on play, learning and development in children;
and evidence of scholarly publications are desirable.

Applicants may express a particular interest or preference for one of the
three research strands, but this is not a requirement.

Download the further particulars for fuller information.

Fixed-term: The funds for each post are available for 3 years from the
start date in the first instance.

Once an offer of employment has been accepted, the successful candidate
will be required to undergo a Disclosure and Barring Service check
(enhanced with children's barred list).

Informal enquiries should be made to Dr David Whitebread, (dgw1004@cam.ac.uk
<javascript:;>)

We plan to hold interviews on 29 January 2015.

Please quote reference JR04937 on your application and in any
correspondence about this vacancy.

The University values diversity and is committed to equality of opportunity.

The University has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are
eligible to live and work in the UK.

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-- 
It is the dilemma of psychology to deal with a natural science as an object
that creates history. Ernst Boesch.