Research Assistant-Quality Talk
Penn State UniversityAbout the role
APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS:
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JOB DESCRIPTION AND POSITION REQUIREMENTS:
The Quality Talk research team is seeking a full-time, fixed-term research assistant for our NSF-funded study on classroom discussion in mathematics teacher education. This position will provide support for various research project operations, including literature searches, data collection and analysis, data organization, and project communication and dissemination (both internal and external).
The project is funded by the National Science Foundation and is aimed at enhancing mathematics teacher educators’ capacity to support preservice teachers developing pedagogical knowledge and skills through reasoning-intensive mathematics discussions. The model and professional development approach used in the project, Quality Talk, has been shown in previous studies to increase teachers’ discussion-based pedagogical content knowledge and efficacy as well as students’ critical-analytic thinking and reasoning.
Responsibilities:
- Assist with data entry and analysis, including video coding, organizing participant data, and ensuring data integrity, following detailed instructions and training.
- Organize project files and data to ensure and maintain security and confidentiality of all participants and their data.
- Assist in the preparation of reports, publication, and presentations to communicate both internally and externally, including reviewing relevant literature.
- Conduct data collection with teacher educators and preservice teachers following detailed instructions and under direct supervision of the Principal Investigator.
- Participate in weekly research team meetings and take meeting notes.
Required Applicant Prerequisites:
- High School Diploma/GED and 2+ years of relevant experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
Preferred Applicant Qualities:
- Bachelor’s Degree
- Knowledge and/or prior experience with teaching mathematics or working with teachers
- Prior research experience in any of the following: mathematics teacher education; elementary mathematics; classroom discourse; video coding and analysis, curriculum development, instrument and scoring rubric development; and/or qualitative data analysis
- Familiarity with data organization and storage
The salary range for this position, including all possible grades is:
$38,300.00 - $55,500.00Apply for this role
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