PhD position on Statistical methods for intensive longitudinal dyadic data (ref. BAP-2023-259)

Organisation/Company

KU Leuven

Research Field

Psychological sciences » Behavioural sciences

Researcher Profile

First Stage Researcher (R1)

Country

Belgium

Application Deadline

5 Jun 2023 - 23:45 (Africa/Abidjan)

Type of Contract

Temporary

Job Status

Full-time

Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?

Not funded by an EU programme

Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure?

No

The successful candidate will work in the Centre for Methodology of Educational Sciences (CMPO) and the Research Group of Quantitative Psychology and Individual Differences (OKP) under the supervision of Ginette Lafit and Eva Ceulemans. The CMPO and OKP groups offer an international, productive, collaborative, and interactive environment with about 26 graduate and postgraduate students, most of which study different aspects of emotion dynamics, time series analysis and intensive longitudinal study design. More information on the members of the research group and their current research topics can be found on the website of our units: https://ppw.kuleuven.be/mesrg/research and https://ppw.kuleuven.be/okp/home . The successful candidate will also become a member of the RE-Connect Interuniversity Research Consortium. RE-Connect pools different fields of expertise to study the dynamics of interpersonal emotional interactions in the domain of work, family, mental health, and across cultures, and to establish what healthy and productive emotional interactions look like in each domain. The work packages within the consortium focus on (1) the development of statistical methods to capture emotional connectedness in dyadic data, (2) emotional connectedness in leader-follower dyads (from different cultures), (3) emotional connectedness in couples (across cultures), and (4) emotional connectedness in relation to mental health problems. The RE-Connect consortium is a collaboration between five PI's (at three Flemish universities) with different domains of expertise, who are each at the top of their field: methodology and statistics, emotion research, organizational psychology, cultural psychology, clinical psychology, and family psychology. The consortium PI team consists of: Eva Ceulemans (KU Leuven), Peter Kuppens (KU Leuven), Joeri Hofmans (VUB), Batja Mesquita (KU Leuven), Lesley Verhofstadt (Ghent University). The consortium members have already inspired and complemented each other. We very much hope that the successful candidate will equally enjoy, as well as benefit from, the complementarity of available expertise. The University of Leuven is a research-oriented institution and is consistently ranked among the top research universities in Europe. Leuven is one of the oldest university towns in Europe, about 30 km from Brussels. It has a rich history and a unique friendly atmosphere.

Website unit

The use of intensive longitudinal approaches to investigate dynamic processes that shape and characterize dyadic relationships (e.g., romantic relationships, child–parent relationships) has become increasingly popular in recent years. Intensive longitudinal dyadic data are often collected by asking both partners of a dyad to report on their experiences multiple times a day for an extended period of time, or alternatively, by repeatedly assessing partners’ subjective experiences and/or physiological states during a lab experiment. Even though dyadic IL designs are already part of the toolkit of behavioral sciences researchers, key questions such as how many dyads should a study include, or for how long and when should participants be measured remain partially unanswered. In addition, the lack of methods to rigorously select the sample size can threaten the robustness and replicability of empirical findings. This PhD project will further develop methods for conducting power analysis for models typically applied to IL dyadic designs, such as the longitudinal actor-partner interdependence model, and will investigate how different design choices (e.g., the type of sampling scheme) influence the accuracy of statistical models applied to IL dyadic data. In addition, the PhD student will develop open-source software to make the methods easily available to researchers.

The PhD candidate is expected to complete a PhD-study within a period of 4 years. The responsibilities of the PhD candidate in this study will be:

• Developing quantitative methods for sample size selection in IL dyadic data, including time series analysis and multilevel modelling techniques
• Developing open-source software and collaborate in the development of workshops for IL sample size planning
• Writing papers for publication in international peer-reviewed journals
• Collaborating with researchers from the RE-Connect project

The essential criteria for the successful candidate are: 

• You have a master degree that implies a profound knowledge of statistics, data analysis and programming (e.g., behavioral sciences, (bio)statistics, econometrics, ...). 
• You are precise, creative, highly motivated and enthusiastic.
• You have good analytic skills. 
• You have excellent English communication and writing skills. 
• You can work on your own, but also enjoy working in an interdisciplinary and interuniversity team.
• Knowledge of R/Julia/Matlab is an asset.
• You have a strong interest in open science.
• Familiarity with research on emotion dynamics, couples or dyad research, and/or time series methods are assets.

Motivated candidates of all nationalities, who have the ability and desire to work in an interdisciplinary and international research environment with a strong commitment to research, are invited to apply.

We offer:

• a fully funded PhD position for four years, starting on October 1st 2023.
• an enthusiastic and supportive supervision team.
• a research consortium of top-level researchers in emotion, relationships, work, and culture, working with cutting edge data collection and statistical methods.
• excellent research facilities, conference/travel budget, and a competitive salary with various additional benefits (in terms of holidays, health insurance, transport costs). 

For more information please contact Mrs. Ginette Lafit, tel.: +32 16 37 62 55, mail: ginette.lafit@kuleuven.be or Prof. dr. Eva Ceulemans, tel.: +32 16 32 58 81, mail: eva.ceulemans@kuleuven.be .

You can apply for this job no later than June 05, 2023 via the online application tool

KU Leuven seeks to foster an environment where all talents can flourish, regardless of gender, age, cultural background, nationality or impairments. If you have any questions relating to accessibility or support, please contact us at diversiteit.HR@kuleuven.be .

Research Field

Psychological sciences » Behavioural sciences

Education Level

Master Degree or equivalent

Number of offers available

1

Company/Institute

KU Leuven

Country

Belgium

City

Leuven

Postal Code

3000

Street

Parijsstraat 72b

Geofield

Website

https://www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jobsite/jobs/60215249

City

Leuven

Website

http://www.kuleuvencareers.be

Street

Parijsstraat 72b Leuven

E-Mail

rekrutering@kuleuven.be