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Research Assistant

Details


1113873


UCL


22/06/2026


Other - See Job


Part-time; 15 hours per week


Not Applicable

Pay


£20.57


£3.85

Description

Role

Unitemps are recruiting for a Research Assistant. This role has an asap start date (mid June) and a projected end date of July 31st 2026. This is a part-time role at 15 hours per week (projected). Payment is set at £20.57 per hour + £3.85 holiday pay. This role is fully remote working.
 

About the project

ASCEND (Aestheticised Spaces of Abundance and Urban Belonging in London) is a short interdisciplinary pilot study running at UCL. The project investigates how the visual character of urban spaces - the materials, design, and ambient cues of cafés, shops, streets, and public squares - shapes whether different people feel they belong in those spaces.

The empirical core of the project is a small online behavioural study run on Prolific, in which UK adult participants view a curated set of photographs of London spaces and rate how those spaces feel to them. The study is preceded by a short pre-test that validates the photographic stimuli. Both are hosted on Qualtrics. 

The project is led by a four-person interdisciplinary team across critical visual analysis, urban development studies, political philosophy, and infrastructure governance. Outputs include a pilot dataset and a working paper.

About the role

We are looking for a part-time Research Assistant with methodological expertise in online experimental research to take a leading role on the behavioural experiment component of ASCEND.

The role is fully remote. It is suitable for one person at 15 hours per week, or for two people sharing the post at 7.5 hours per week each. Please indicate your preference in your application.

Duties and responsibilities

Main duties

  • Design review and refinement: review the draft experimental design, pre-test, and survey instrument; advise on the stimulus-validation rule, the perceived-belonging and social-fit measurement items, attention checks, and quality-control exclusions; help finalise a defensible analysis plan and a pre-registration.
  • Survey set-up: build and stress-test the pre-test and main-study surveys in Qualtrics; check randomisation, branching, between-subjects assignment, and image rendering across devices.
  • Stimulus handling: prepare the photographic stimulus pack for upload (resizing, file-naming, alt-text for accessibility), and apply the inclusion rule to the pre-test data to lock the final 8 image pairs.
  • Prolific recruitment: set up and launch the pre-test and main study on Prolific, monitor recruitment, manage participant queries, and screen out pre-test participants from the main study.
  • Data handling: export response data, apply the project's data-handling protocol (strip Prolific IDs, convert postcode prefixes to IMD deciles, retain only the analytic variables), and produce a clean de-identified dataset suitable for analysis.
  • Quality control: implement the pre-specified exclusion rules (instructional manipulation check, speeders, etc.) and document exclusions transparently.
  • Statistical analysis: run the primary analysis of the pre-test and main study data. This includes descriptives and reliability checks (e.g. α / ω) for the perceived-belonging and social-fit item blocks; the stimulus-validation summary from the pre-test; the primary inferential models - most plausibly mixed-effects regressions with image as a random effect, register as the key predictor, and demographic moderators (class, ethnicity, gender, IMD decile, etc.) entered as interaction terms; pre-specified robustness checks; and a light first-pass coding of the open-ended responses. You will produce reproducible analysis scripts (R or Python) and a short analytic report that the team can build on for the working paper.
  • Documentation: maintain a running log of design decisions, deviations, recruitment numbers, and analytic choices, suitable for direct inclusion in the project's methods write-up.
  • Team liaison: attend a brief weekly check-in (online) with the workstream lead and PI, and flag methodological issues early.

Skills and experience

Essential

  • Demonstrable experience designing or substantially refining at least one online experimental or quasi-experimental study end-to-end.
  • Likely disciplinary backgrounds include experimental or social psychology, behavioural science, quantitative human geography, experimental economics, or a closely related field - but we are interested in what you have done, not in the label on your degree.
  • Working knowledge of the methodological building blocks of online behavioural research: between-subjects designs, stimulus validation and matched stimuli, attention / instructional manipulation checks, pre-specified exclusion rules, and (ideally) pre-registration.
  • Confident user of Qualtrics (or transferable experience with Gorilla, SoSci, Pavlovia, or similar), and confident user of Prolific (or a comparable participant panel such as CloudResearch / MTurk Toloka).
  • Hands-on experience analysing experimental data of comparable complexity - at minimum, regression with interaction terms and mixed-effects / multilevel models - and working fluency in R or Python (or comparable) for reproducible analysis.
  • Careful, methodical approach to detail-heavy tasks and willingness to document decisions clearly.
  • Good written communication, including the ability to give the team direct methodological feedback in a way they can act on.
  • Reliable independent working — able to manage your own time, meet deadlines without supervision, and raise blockers early.

Desirable

  • A completed or in-progress postgraduate qualification (Masters, MRes, or PhD) in one of the disciplinary areas listed above.
  • Experience with image-based or visual stimuli in an experimental setting.
  • Familiarity with psychometric basics — reliability statistics, scale construction, and the analysis of Likert-type item blocks.
  • Experience working with demographic moderators (e.g. ethnicity, class, gender) in quantitative analyses, and familiarity with the methodological care this requires.
  • Familiarity with UK ethics / data-handling expectations (UCL, or comparable institution).
  • At least one piece of prior work (thesis chapter, paper, pre-registered report, public repository) evidencing relevant experience.
  • Interest in urban studies, visual analysis, social inequality, or behavioural research more broadly.

Working arrangements

The post is fully remote. You will need a reliable internet connection and a suitable working environment; UCL will not provide equipment for this short contract. The 15 hours per week can be worked flexibly across weekdays, with the exception of a short weekly check-in scheduled at a mutually convenient time.

Job-share applicants are welcome. If you wish to apply as part of a job share, you can either apply together (preferred) or apply individually and indicate that you are open to a job-share arrangement; we will work with shortlisted candidates to confirm a workable split.

Location
UCL; remote (home based) working

Additional information

This job will close for applications at 11.59pm on Monday June 15th. Interviews will be held shortly after.

*Please note to be eligible to work within this role, you must have the right to work in the UK, be physically based in the UK and be able to travel to our London based office for a RTW check (if required).

*If you have a full-time contract of employment with UCL, you are not able to work through UCL Unitemps at the same time.

Unitemps reserves the right to close this advert for applications prior to the date specified above, if a high volume of suitable applications are received so pleased don't delay applying.

Unitemps payroll is monthly, one month in arrears, please see the payroll dates here.

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