Doctoral Researcher

**Contract Type**: Fixed Term Contract | **Duration**: 36 Month

Doctoral researcher in Psychology

The **University of Luxembourg** is an **international research** university with a distinctly **multilingual** and **interdisciplinary** character. The University was founded in 2003 and counts more than 6,700 students and more than 2,000 employees from around the world. The University’s faculties and interdisciplinary centres focus on research in the areas of Computer Science and ICT Security, Materials Science, European and International Law, Finance and Financial Innovation, Education, Contemporary and Digital History. In addition, the University focuses on cross-disciplinary research in the areas of Data Modelling and Simulation as well as Health and System Biomedicine. Times Higher Education ranks the University of Luxembourg #3 worldwide for its “international outlook,” #20 in the Young University Ranking 2021 and among the top 250 universities worldwide.

The **Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences** (FHSE) brings together expertise from the humanities, linguistics, cognitive sciences, social and educational sciences. People from across 20 disciplines are working within the Faculty. Along with the **disciplinary** approach a very ambitious interdisciplinary research culture has been developed.

The faculty’s research and teaching focuses on **social, economic, political** and **educational** issues with the common goal of contributing to an inclusive, open and resourceful society. The FHSE offers six Bachelor and twenty Master degrees and a doctoral school providing students with the necessary knowledge and high-qualified skills to succeed in their future career.

**Your Role...**
The Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences and the Institute for Lifespan Development, Family, and Culture at the University of Luxembourg are seeking to appoint**:1 position as Doctoral Researcher in a project on daily perceptions of instructional quality (Field: Educational Psychology)** to **obtain a PhD** (within the DYNAMIQUES project: “Dynamics In Students’ Momentary Perceptions Of Instructional Quality In Everyday School Life”; Principal Investigator: Dr. Christoph Niepel).

The central focus of DYNAMIQUES is the investigation of the everyday dynamics (pattern of growth, change, and development) of students’ (and their teachers’) perceptions of instructional quality, motivation, and learning gains from one school lesson to the next. Specifically, this position will focus on the use of electronic diaries (aka experience sampling) and on the exploitation of the collected micro-longitudinal data from a content-related and a methodological perspective. The research environment of the DYNAMIQUES project is therefore located in the field of educational psychology, with strong links to educational assessment, empirical instruction research, motivation science, and quantitative methods.

**Responsibilities**:

- Self-contained research targeted at receiving a PhD in Psychology (cumulative; i.e., based on peer-reviewed publications)
- Data collection at participating schools in Germany and Luxembourg
- Data analysis and psychometric scaling with multilevel structural equation models (SEM) or similar approaches
- Communication with partners and independent instruction of student assistants
- Administrative responsibilities within the project (e.g., acquisition of study participants, coordinating data collection)
- Publications (in English-speaking peer-reviewed journals and at scientific conferences)
- Contribute to and support (on-going and future) research-related activities of the research group

**What we expect from you**
- Excellent Master’s degree (or equivalent) in Psychology or a related field
- Good knowledge of and interest in quantitative methods; experience with structural equation modeling (SEM); willingness to learn advanced quantitative methods
- Willingness to travel (e.g., visiting participating schools in Germany and Luxembourg)
- Excellent English skills in speech and writing are required
- Excellent German skills in speech and writing are required
- Ability to work independently and under strict timelines, communication and cooperation skills, administrative skills, good knowledge of data analysis
- Enthusiasm and enjoyment for research and science, strong personal commitment

**We offer...**
- Participation in a young, committed, and dynamically developing team
- Affiliation to a very active research group
- Excellent research and funding conditions on a personal and a research level at an international and multilingual university
- Connections to internationally renowned experts in educational psychology, educational assessment, and psychometrics
- National and international conference and workshop attendances within the field
- Possibility to receive a PhD based on publications within a very reasonable amount of time
- Close collaboration with the Principal In