Graduate Academic Assistant (GAA)

Student (JFG)

Job Category

Student Employee

Job Title

Graduate Academic Assistant (GAA)

Department

UBCO | Research | Taylor | School of Social Work | Faculty of Health and Social Development (Edward Taylor)

Posting End Date

December 18, 2023

Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the day prior to the Posting End Date above.

Job End Date

Aug 31, 2024

APPLICATION PROCEDURE: Please send a copy of your CV and a cover letter to Dr. Edward Taylor via email at edward.taylor@ubc.ca.

Equity and diversity are essential to academic excellence. An open and diverse community fosters the inclusion of voices that have been underrepresented or discouraged. We encourage applications from members of groups that have been marginalized on any grounds enumerated under the B.C. Human Rights Code, including sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, racialization, disability, political belief, religion, marital or family status, age, and/or status as a First Nation, Metis, Inuit, or Indigenous person. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply.

• Undergraduate degree in social work, psychology, or related social science
• Current enrollment in the MSW program at UBCO
• Experience conducting literature searches and writing literature reviews
• Strong reading, comprehension, and writing skills (the job requires reading numerous articles and documents and writing formal reports, letters, and emails)
• Ability to search the web for applicable literature and interviews
• Familiarity with databases and spreadsheets

• Preference is given to individuals who have experience using qualitative and quantitative analysis software (the student will enter data, help develop research questions, and interpret findings)

• Ability to work on a collaborative, interdisciplinary team
• Willing to remain with the project until October or November 2024

The person hired will participate in investigating how ecological systems, culture, behavior, cognitive-information processing styles, and psychological temperament interact and influence violent individuals. This is a sociocultural-ecological study informed by existing literature and available data.

The successful candidate will work directly with Dr. Edward Taylor and communicate with government and not-for-profit agencies. The GAA will attend regular meetings with the research team. Part of the assigned work can be completed off the UBCO campus. However, much of the research requires on-campus collaboration with team members.

The study uses existing published articles and documents along with computer-posted information to examine the development of violent individuals. This research aims to create a multidimensional description of individuals who intentionally engage in physical assaults. Harmonizing interacting elements rather than reporting singular concepts such as home situation or socioeconomic phenomena provides a more complete representation of how violent plans are formed. The study seeks to form a synchronized source of information that details the many dimensions of violent individuals.

Duties include the following:

• Conduct complex library and computer literature searches
• Work with the team to determine which literature is used by the project
• Conduct research-related tasks such as identifying and summarizing findings from articles, documents, and web information
• Conduct data collection, including data analysis and data management
• Identify research variables within select datasets
• Analyze findings to determine themes and linkage among and between variables
• Conduct content analysis of selected literature
• Prepare and present research findings for review by team members
• Help improve research activities and make revisions as necessary in work plans and products
• Write research reports
• Participate in regular team meetings
• Work collaboratively with the team leader and other R.A.s
• Participate in writing articles for publication (authorship is based on the amount of original writing for the article completed by the R.A.)
• Performs other related duties as required.