Doctoral Scholarships – Centre for Positive Psychology and Education

Jul 5, 2012 | All Jobs, Doctoral Scholarships

Professor Herb Marsh has recently accepted a Chair in Educational Psychology at UWS in the recently established Centre for Positive Psychology and Education (CPPE). He is seeking up to four doctoral scholars to join his research program under his supervision.

Professor Marsh is one of the most widely cited educational psychology researchers in the world and has previously been awarded the UWS PhD Supervisor of the Year. His research focus is on substantive-methodological synergy, integrating cutting-edge quantitative methodology to tackle substantive and theoretical issues with important policy/practice implications. CPPE provides a dynamic, multidisciplinary environment for PhD students to pursue an academic research career in education, psychology, and related social science disciplines. It has a large academic and support staff dedicated to its research program, substantial research funding, and a vibrant PhD program with a proven track record. The CPPE team, aligned with the international positive psychology movement, is one of the leading educational psychology research groups in the world.

Scholarship Program 1: Positive Psychology (3 available)

Applicants are invited to submit a proposal to undertake a project of their own design which aligns with Professor Marsh’s research program.

Academic Criteria

Applicants should provide evidence of:

  • Academic excellence (including but not limited to academic awards or grants)
  • An Australian First Class or Second Class Upper Division Honours degree, Research Masters degree, or international equivalent in the fields of psychology, education, statistics/applied mathematics, or related fields.
  • A high level of English language proficiency. International applicants should refer to the web regarding  <http://www.uws.edu.au/international/english_language_requirement> English language requirements.
  • Applicants must submit a research proposal (250 words)

Scholarship Program 2: The Empirical Landscape of Educational Science

This project will use citation information from online databases and other data sources to provide an empirical picture of the current state of educational science. The project will include aspects of the following topics:

1. The use of journal cross-citation patterns (the degree to which the content of journals cite themselves and each other) to provide an empirical typology of educational science. The project will provide a general framework for collecting and developing a cross-citation matrix of ISI recognized journals in education and will utilize social network analysis and associated methods to identify patterns in the relationships between journals.

2. The use of citation and cross-citation data to develop empirical procedures for ranking journals, research institutes, and universities in educational science domains.

3. The use of author publication records and ongoing author citation information to evaluate the procedure of using researchers’ publication track record as a means of predicting future publication success resulting from awarding a grant.

4. The use of authorship, co-authorship, and cross citation to explore the development and testing of hypotheses in educational science. Research questions pursued would include: a) the degree to which there is variation in how insular published research is across major frameworks in educational science (i.e., few authors producing the majority of published papers); and b) does the degree to which research is insular predict inter study variance in published results on that topic.

Academic Criteria

Applicants should provide evidence of:

  • Academic excellence (including but not limited to academic awards or grants) and degrees in the fields of applied mathematics, statistics, informatics, quantitative psychology, or associated fields
  • Knowledge of one or more programming languages is preferable
  • Advanced knowledge of R and/or SAS
  • Academic or professional background in information systems and/or informatics
  • Experience with web scraping, database  management, and computational statistics
  • Academic publications and presentations
  • Alignment of research experience and interests with The Empirical Landscape of Educational Science project
  • A high level of English language proficiency. International applicants should refer to the following webpage regarding English Language requirements: http://www.uws.edu.au/international/admissions/english_language_requirement
  • Applicants must submit a research proposal (250 words) covering one or two of the proposed research topics for the project.

Each Scholarship Provides:

  • Domestic applicants will be offered a tax free stipend of $33,728 per annum for three years and a funded place in the course
  • International applicants will be offered a tax-free stipend of $23,728 per annum for three years, a tuition fee waiver and an Overseas Student Health Care Policy (OSHC)
  • Funding will also be available for project costs
  • Applicants already in receipt of a scholarship (e.g. from their home country or government) may not be offered another scholarship from UWS, but may be offered a place in the course

To obtain further information, contact:

The application should include the following application form:

http://www.uws.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/118103/Scholarship_Application_June_2012.pdf